Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

DEATH OF A MEMBER.

Mr. SPEAKER made the following communication to the House.

I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Colin Mark Patrick, Esquire, Member for the County of Devon (Tavistock Division), and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Member.

ALIENS (NATURALIZATION).

Address for Return.
showing (1) Particulars of all Aliens to whom Certificates of Naturalization have been issued and whose Oaths of Allegiance have during the year ended the 31st day of December 1940, been registered at the Home Office; (2) Information as to any Aliens who have during the same period, obtained Acts of Naturalization from the Legislature; and (3) Particulars of cases in which Certificates of Naturalization have been revoked during the same period (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 78 of Session 1940–41)."—[Mr. Peake.]

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

PRODUCTION.

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is satisfied that all colliery companies are efficiently operated from the standpoint of maximum production; and, if not, what steps he has taken to bring this about?

The Secretary for Mines (Mr. David Grenfell): I have every reason to believe that in general collieries are being efficiently operated with a view to maximum production. At the same time I recognise that efficiency is a matter of degree, and I can assure my hon. Friend that this question is receiving the constant attention both of my Department and of the

Coal Production Council, and action is continually being taken, either generally or in regard to particular collieries, with the object of improving output.

Mr. Gordon Macdonald: Does the hon. Gentleman call for periodical returns from the district production committees, and, if so, do those returns contain any reference to suggestions which may be made by the workers' representatives and which are sometimes unacceptable to the employers? Is a full report received?

Mr. Grenfell: I would not say that we get absolutely full accounts of everything that takes place, but we do ask for returns from pit and district committees.

Mr. Macdonald: There are complaints in different districts that the employers' attitude towards suggestions put forward by the workers is not always one that commends itself to the workers.

Mr. Grenfell: I am afraid there is occasionally ground for complaint on the workers' side, but it is laid down by the Coal Production Council that nothing is to be debarred from discussion, and it is my intention to encourage the fullest discussions between the two parties.

Mr. Tinker: If for instance, a difference arose and somebody had to decide who was wrong, would the Mines Department step in and advise the owners?

Mr. Grenfell: Certainly. If it were found that any particular owner or owners were unwilling to listen to suggestions from the workers for improving production, we should take steps to deal with those owners.

COLLIERY COMPANIES (GOVERNMENT CONTROL).

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary for Mines what is the number of colliery firms which have been taken over since the beginning of the war on the grounds of inefficiency?

Mr. Grenfell: The Department has taken control of four companies, has guaranteed bank overdrafts in five cases, has met losses in working for short periods in three cases, and has lent money to two companies. All the cases of control were due primarily to financial difficulties, but action was taken in the interests of the maintenance of production from those pits.

Mr. Parker: Does not the hon. Gentleman recognise that unless he is prepared to take over inefficient pits, he has no real sanction to apply to ensure efficiency?

Mr. Grenfell: I can assure my hon. Friend that where we find inefficiency we have the power, and we use the power, to remedy it. In the four cases where we have taken over control, it is intended that the management shall be improved.

Mr. Tinker: When shall we have an opportunity of examining the financial assistance given? Will it appear in the report of the Chancellor of Exchequer?

Mr. Grenfell: I think it will come on the Department's Vote.

Mr. Mathers: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many of these cases have occurred in Scotland?

Mr. Grenfell: No case of taking over control has occurred in Scotland.

COLLIERY CANTEENS.

Mr. T. Smith: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of canteens now in operation where full sit-down hot meals are served; and how many more are in course of erection?

Mr. Grenfell: Canteens equipped to serve full sit-down meals are in operation

—
Canteens for full meals.
Canteens for "Snap" and Snacks.


No. of collieries.
Proportion of total number of men employed in the industry who are catered for.
No. of collieries.
Proportion of total number of men employed in the industry who are catered for.




Per cent.

Per cent.


Canteens in operation.
49
8
611
70


Canteens under construction.
31
3
152
10


Canteens in course of conversion.
80
11
763
80


Add 38
Add 7
Deduct 38
Deduct 7


Schemes in preparation.
118
18
725
73


48
4
—
—



166
22
725
73




95 per cent.


"Snap" means sandwiches, meat pies, etc., for consumption at place of work.


"Snack" means food eaten in the canteens (other than full meals).


Full meal type canteens are mostly equipped to serve "Snap" or Snacks to men who want them.

at 49 collieries, and in course of erection at 69 collieries, together catering for about 18 per cent. of the total number of mine-workers employed. Plans are in preparation for additional colliery canteens of this type. In order that the hon. Member may have the most complete information regarding these canteens, I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT further details of the number of collieries at which facilities for partaking of food in this and other forms have been provided. The total provision for service of food provides facilities in one form or another for about 95 per cent. of the whole of the mineworkers.

Mr. Smith: Would my hon. Friend agree that where canteens for sit-down hot meals are in operation the output has been improved?

Mr. Grenfell: I would certainly say that where the men can be provided with as much additional food as can conveniently be served to them, the result would be an improvement in production.

Major Petherick: Will supplies of food to the canteens be increased?

Mr. Grenfell: I think the supply has already been increased.

Following are the details referred to in the Answer:

MINE ACCIDENTS.

Mr. T. Smith: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of persons killed and seriously injured in and around collieries during 1941; and the various causes of the accidents?

Mr. Grenfell: During the year 1941, 915 persons were killed and 2,883 seriously injured by accidents at mines under the Coal Mines Act as compared with 923 killed and 3,237 seriously injured in the year 1940. The chief causes of fatal accidents in 1941 were 497 from falls of ground, 188 on haulages, 72 from explosions and 85 on the surface. I am circulating the rest of the particulars in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Smith: Can my hon. Friend say whether the joint machinery which exists to deal with accidents from falls of roof is working smoothly?

Mr. Grenfell: I am very pleased to say that that machinery is getting to work smoothly, and I am happy to inform the House that the rate of accidents underground from falls of ground has been very much improved in the last six months.

Following are the particulars referred to in the Answer:


Number of persons killed and seriously injured* by accidents at mines under the Coal Mines Act in Great Britain during the year 1941.


Place of cause.
Number of persons killed (provisional)
Number of persons seriously injured (provisional)


Falls of Ground




(a) At the Face
429
1,191


(b) On the Roads
68
148


Haulage and Transport
188
711


Gases, Coal Dust and Fires




(a) Explosions
72
84


(b) Others
13
4


Machinery
5
57


Other Underground Accidents
55
389


Surface Accidents
85
299



915
2,883


* Injuries which, because of their nature or severity are, under the terms of Section 80 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, required to be reported to His Majesty's Divisional Inspectors at the time of their occurrence.

WAR DAMAGE REPAIRS, DURHAM COAST.

Mr. W. Joseph Stewart: asked the Secretary for Mines whether any arrangement has been made by his Department, the chief inspector of mine; and the coal-owners, to meet quickly any damage done by enemy action to winding gear or the ventilating system of any of the collieries situated on the Durham coast; and whether there is any portable winding gear in this area that could be brought into requisition in case of emergency?

Mr. Grenfell: Yes, Sir. Many of the collieries are inter-connected underground or have drifts to the surface; there are five sets of portable winding equipment which would be available throughout the country; and at some of the mines there is available spare winding equipment which could be put into service at the mine in any case of emergency.

Mr. Stewart: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this an area which is under constant bombardment by enemy planes, and is he satisfied that there is sufficient portable winding-gear on the Durham coast to meet any emergency that may arise?

Mr. Grenfell: I think there is sufficient provision in the North-East area for meeting any emergency of that kind.

ABSENTEEISM, YORKSHIRE (NEW YEAR'S DAY).

Sir Granville Gibson: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that in accordance with an agreement with the men's representatives, the Yorkshire Coal Owners' Association, decided in the national interest to limit the Christmas holidays to three days in Christmas week and work on New Year's Day; that absenteeism on New Year's Day was 47.08 per cent., representing a lost tonnage of 56,944 tons of coal urgently required, and what action he has taken in this matter of wilful absenteeism, following the repeated appeals of the Government for regular attendance at the pits?

Mr. Grenfell: I am informed that the figure of absenteeism on New Year's Day quoted by the hon. Member corresponds with the result of the return taken by the South Yorkshire Coalowners' Association. Machinery under the Essential Work (Coalmining Industry) Order exists


for dealing with absenteeism through reports made by colliery managements to Pit Production Committees. Both District and Pit Production Committees have been made fully aware of the urgent need for increasing output by every means open to them, including the reduction of avoidable absenteeism. I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by independent action on my part in regard to this case.

Sir G. Gibson: Does the hon. Gentleman expect that he will be able so to control the miners that they will keep to the agreements they have made?

Mr. Grenfell: This is only a very small incident in the general activities of the mining industry. I am sure my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the average number of days worked by miners last year was higher than it has been for many years past.

Sir G. Gibson: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the loss of 60,000 tons in one small area is a minor incident?

Mr. Grenfell: No, it is not a minor incident, but let us put it in its right proportion. The purpose of the Pit Production Committees is to increase production. We need every ton of additional output, and we deplore these losses as much as anyone.

Mr. G. Macdonald: Does the hon. Gentleman think that to over-emphasise this aspect of the matter does harm to the war effort?

Mr. Grenfell: That is the effect of what I said.

Mr. T. Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that discussions are taking place in this coalfield on the question, and that it does not improve the position to refer only to one side of it?

Mr. Grenfell: I do not desire to attribute blame. I want to encourage everybody to do better and to discourage avoidable absenteeism.

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPERIAL WAR CABINET.

Mr. Granville: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (1) whether the Government of South Africa has been consulted recently on the

question of the formation of an Empire War Cabinet; and with what result?
(2) whether the Secretary of State is to represent the Dominions at meetings of the Allied War Council or whether they will send their own delegates; whether the question of an Empire War Cabinet was discussed at the recent conference at Ottawa; and with what result?

The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Shakespeare): I understand that the Prime Minister, in the statement on the war situation which he proposes to make at an early date, will deal so far as may be necessary with the issues raised in these two Questions. My hon. Friend will, therefore, perhaps await this statement.

Mr. Granville: Is the Dominions Office consulted at all on these questions, and does the Secretary of State for the Dominions still attend all meetings of the War Cabinet when these subjects are under discussion?

Mr. Shakespeare: Yes, that is so.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTHERN RHODESIA (ASKARI DISCIPLINARY CODE).

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether reconsideration can be given to the Askari Disciplinary Code, announced in the Gazette of Southern Rhodesia, No. 35, of 29th August last, which provides for the flogging of native volunteer soldiers; and whether all such disciplinary punishments of men in the fighting forces of the territories for which he is responsible can be reviewed?

Mr. Shakespeare: The Regulations in question do not differentiate between Europeans and natives, and are entirely within the competence of the Southern Rhodesia Government. The hon. Member's Question will be communicated to the Southern Rhodesia Government, but I would point out that it has been considered necessary in other African Territories to retain the power to impose corporal punishment in the case of African Military personnel.

Mr. Creech Jones: What is the degree to which this punishment operates, and is it at all restricted to particular offences?

Mr. Shakespeare: Yes, Sir. The powers taken in the Code are severely restricted, and are applied in the case of African military personnel in the case of very grave offences, like rape and looting when the troops are on the march.

Mr. Sorensen: Has this punishment been inflicted on any white soldiers?

Mr. Shakespeare: I should require notice of that Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS EVACUATION (REMITTANCES).

Miss Cozalet: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether, in view of representations made by some of the parents of the children evacuated overseas under the Children's Overseas Reception Board Scheme, it is proposed to send to the Dominions any part of the weekly contributions received from the parents for the use of the children or of their foster-parents?

Mr. Shakespeare: Yes, Sir. The Children's Overseas Reception Board has just completed a financial review and has decided that as from the beginning of this year all contributions from parents shall be at a uniform rate of six shillings per week. His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are in communication with His Majesty's Governments in the Dominions on the question of the possible transfer to them of contributions from parents to be made available, as required, in such manner as they may consider best in the interests of the children.

Oral Answers to Questions — ELECTRICITY CHARGES.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any proposals to deal with the grievances of domestic consumers of electricity who respond to the appeal to economise in electricity consumption but have to pay the balance between the charge for the actual amount of electricity consumed and the minimum charge imposed by electricity undertakings, and are thus involved in expenditure incommensurate with the service rendered?

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Andrew Duncan): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for

East Leicester (Major Lyons) on 16th October last. I am not aware that the services rendered by electricity undertakings are incommensurate with the authorised minimum charges which consumers may be required to pay. If, however, the hon. Member will bring to my notice any particular case in which the minimum charge is considered to be excessive, I shall be pleased to inquire into it.

Mr. Sorensen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in fact, many complaints have been addressed to the local authorities precisely on this issue; in other words, numbers of consumers of electricity are complaining about paying more for consuming less?

Sir A. Duncan: No, Sir, I am not aware of that. If the hon. Gentleman will give me particulars, I will look into them.

Oral Answers to Questions — RETAIL BUSINESSES (LICENSING).

Mr. Leslie: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Retail Trade Committee expressed the opinion that the licensing of new traders, and the granting of licences for trading in new categories of goods, are matters directly affecting the well-being of shopworkers, and consequently that the organised shop-workers should be represented on the licensing authorities; and why this recommendation has not been carried out?

Sir A. Duncan: As the hon. Member is no doubt aware, I have arranged for licences under the Location of Retail Businesses Order to be issued on behalf of the Board of Trade by the Local Price Regulation Committees. These committees are thoroughly representative bodies well suited for this task and it did not seem to me to be desirable to add to the committees for this purpose.

Mr. Leslie: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that the livelihood of the workers is at stake, and that surely they ought to be represented, especially when this has been recommended by this committee?

Sir A. Duncan: The question is really one as to whether the trade union representation already on the committees is sufficiently representative to take charge of questions such as would arise in considering, not the livelihood of others who


might come in, but new applications to establish shops. It does not seem to me now that it is necessary to add to the committees for that purpose.

Oral Answers to Questions — REGIONAL FUEL AND POWER CONTROLLERS.

Mr. Keeling: asked the President of the Board of Trade what are the functions of the Regional Fuel and Power Controllers; and by what authority they are issuing questionnaires?

Sir A. Duncan: I appointed Regional Fuel and Power Controllers for the purpose for ensuring adequate co-ordination in matters concerning the supply of the different kinds of fuel and power and in emergency conditions to take charge under the Regional Commissioner. The Controllers are therefore acting on my authority.

Mr. Keeling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the heavy burden which these questionnaires impose on the mining industry, and will he consider, in consultation with the industry, whether they could not be reduced?

Sir A. Duncan: Unfortunately, it is quite impossible to get information without asking questions. The number of returns to be made by the mining industry in different connections is already the subject of investigation and consideration by a committee appointed by the Coal Production Council.

Mr. Keeling: Thank you.

Mr. G. Macdonald: Will the right hon. Gentleman keep in mind, in making these appointments, that the fact that they all come from one side of the industry does create some uneasiness in the minds of the workers, and will he not consider appointing someone from the workers' side of the industry?

Sir A. Duncan: So far as I understand it, it is universally agreed that the persons appointed to these particular offices are specially well qualified for their appointment.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

DISCHARGED SOLDIERS (SILVER BADGE).

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that

officers and other ranks who have served overseas in the present war and have subsequently been discharged owing to medical unfitness or ill-health but have not been granted a pension, are not eligible to receive a silver badge for services rendered, issued through the Ministry of Pensions; and, in view of this inequality, whether he will take steps to deal with the matter?

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for War (Sir Edward Grigg): As my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal stated in the House on 7th August, a badge is issued to those invalided from the Naval, Military and Air Forces, and the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleet, through wounds or war disablement attributable to service since 3rd September, 1939. The suggestion of the hon. Member has been considered, but it has been decided that the issue of this badge must be specifically limited to personnel invalided on grounds of attributable disability.

Mr. Bellenger: Is it correct that they must first qualify and obtain a pension before they can be eligible for the issue of this badge?

Sir E. Grigg: The disability has to be proved to be attributable before the badge can be issued.

Mr. Bellenger: In fact, they have to be in receipt of a pension before they can get this badge.

Sir E. Grigg: I will inquire into that point, though the fact that the disability has to be proved to be attributable is nearly the same thing as qualifying for a pension.

CAMP CHATTELS (REQUISITIONING).

Sir Herbert Williams: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is now prepared to institute an inquiry into the requisitioning of chattels at a camp, the name of which has been given to him?

Sir E. Grigg: I am afraid my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. The chattels in question have not yet been requisitioned, although it is true that the termination of the present hiring agreement with a view to subsequent requisitioning is under consideration. I have looked further into this matter but I can see no reason for any special inquiry.

Sir H. Williams: Can the hon. Gentlement tell me why the Secretary of State for War some weeks ago said there was no need for an inquiry on the ground that the whole matter had been settled, and why there is no need for an inquiry now since an inquiry was started which revealed a prima facie case of irregularity, and the Board of Officers were dismissed before they could report?

Sir E. Grigg: I cannot accept that. What actually happened was that a board was appointed for a purpose distinct from the question of requisitioning which the Lands Department of the War Office were at that time considering. It was useless for two bodies to operate at once and the board was therefore dissolved.

Sir H. Williams: In these circumstances why has the Secretary of State, specifically in answer to a question, told me in writing, and the Financial Secretary told me across the Floor of the House, that no inquiry had ever taken place? Now we are told that two inquiries have taken place.

Sir E. Grigg: The hon. Member is obviously asking for an inquiry into whether the occupation was properly conducted.

Sir H. Williams: No, I am asking why I have been told in the House and by letter that there has been no inquiry, and now I am told that there has been.

Sir E. Grigg: I am afraid I cannot accept that. If that answer was given, it was certainly given under a misapprehension.

KING'S REGULATIONS (NON-PARTY ORGANISATIONS).

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will take steps to amend paragraph 541 (a) of King's Regulations which, as interpreted by the Privy Council, forbids officers and men to take an active part in the affairs of non-party organisations such as the League of Nations Union or the Federal Union, in view of the fact that the educational work of such societies is essential to the formation of an informed electorate?

Sir E. Grigg: I do not think it would be desirable to amend King's Regulations in the sense suggested by my hon. Friend; but there is nothing in King's Regulations to prevent serving officers and other ranks

attending the meetings of these societies with a view to informing their own minds, provided they do not take an active part in their affairs.

Mr. Mander: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Prime Minister is President of the League of Nations Union, which contains members of all parties?

Sir E. Grigg: That may be true but the Regulations lay down that no officer or soldier may take any active part in the affairs of any political organisation or party, until he has retired or been discharged. It is very hard to draw the line between party and non-party organisations.

AGRICULTURAL WORE (LEAVE).

Commander King-Hall: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the national importance of our agricultural effort at the present time and the shortage of labour for agriculture, and subject to the exigencies of the military situation, he will consider releasing soldiers for work on the land every six months instead of annually as at present?

Sir E. Grigg: Key workers on farms may be granted agricultural leave up to a total of 28 days annually, but the leave may be taken in one or mere periods, subject, of course, to military requirements and the recommendations of the War Agricultural Executive Committees. The question of increasing the maximum annual total of 28 days has been carefully considered, but it has not been found possible to do so on military grounds.

Commander King-Hall: Does that apply only to cases where troops are available locally, so that they may be allowed one or two days to work on the farms?

Sir E. Grigg: That is a question about troops as units. The original Question relates to them as individuals.

INTERCHANGE OF EXPERIENCE (ALLIED FORCES).

Mr. Granville: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will take steps to arrange for an adequate number of all ranks of the British Army to visit the Russian front, to be attached to the Russian Army as a token Allied Force, and to allow them to obtain first-hand experience and information of the methods being employed by the Russian Forces in


their successful offensive against the German and satellite troops; and whether he will extend a similar invitation to the Russian military authorities to visit the Libyan, Malayan and home defence fronts, in order that experiences in fighting the enemy may be interchanged between the Allied Forces on the basis of Allied command and united operations in a world-scale strategy?

Sir E. Grigg: As the hon. Member is aware, the British Military Mission in Moscow, made up of officers representing the various arms of the Service, is in close contact with the Soviet military authorities, and its task is to study and report on Russian tactics and experience. The Russians have a similar mission in England. His Majesty's Government and the Soviet Government are keeping under continuous consideration methods of achieving the maximum co-operation between the Russian and British armies, and of enabling the latter to benefit by Russian experience.

Mr. Granville: Will the hon. Gentleman take into consideration the fact that the people of this country have a very high regard for Russian military methods? Does he not think it would be advantageous to the British Army if representatives of all ranks could obtain experience in this way?

Sir E. Grigg: The hon. Gentleman will realise that there are many practical difficulties, such as transportation, but I am satisfied that we are getting all we can from Russian experience.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Is it not the case that the British Military Mission is not in Moscow, but is on the Volga, about 600 miles from the front?

DISEMBARKATION LEAVE.

Mr. Wakefield: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has any statement to make about the granting of disembarkation leave after service overseas?

Sir E. Grigg: The normal period of disembarkation leave on arrival in the United Kingdom has recently been increased from seven to 14 days. In certain cases, where recuperative leave is required owing to the climatic conditions at the overseas station concerned, the period is 28 days.

MEDICINES (POISONS AND DANGEROUS DRUGS).

Mr. Wakefield: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is satisfied with the regulations in force in the Army in connection with the dispensing of medicines and the safe custody and proper labelling of poisons and dangerous drugs?

Sir E. Grigg: Yes, Sir. Fresh instructions calling attention to the regulations on this subject have recently been issued. A simple notice on the care, custody and administration of poisons and dangerous drugs will be posted in a conspicuous position in all medical establishments.

ITALIAN PRISONERS OF WAR (SHIP ACCOMMODATION).

Mr. Wakefield: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will issue instructions that prisoners of war when transported in the same ship as British troops will not be given accommodation and comforts denied to British troops, as in the case of which he has been informed, when mattresses already issued to British troops for the voyage were taken from them and given to Italian prisoners of war, while British troops had to sleep without mattresses on the bare boards of decks inferior to those occupied by the Italian prisoners of war?

Sir E. Grigg: I think this is a matter that can best be left to the discretion of the officer commanding troops, in conjunction with the master of the ship concerned, but I can assure my hon. Friend that prisoners of war are not provided with a class of accommodation higher than that provided for British troops of equivalent ranks. In the case to which my hon. Friend refers, there was no question of British troops having had to sleep without mattresses on the bare boards of decks. The troops in question were simply moved temporarily from the upper deck to their normal hammock accommodation, so that the Italian prisoners of war could be segregated on the upper deck for the five days during which they were on board.

Mr. Wakefield: Is my hon. Friend aware that I have spoken to soldiers who slept on the bare boards because their mattresses had been taken away and given to Italian prisoners of war?

Sir E. Grigg: If my hon. Friend will give me particulars, I will inquire again. I have given him the information that I have.

TYPHUS (PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES).

Major Milner: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the typhus epidemic which has assumed dangerous proportions in Eastern Europe and made its appearance in Spain; and what preventive methods have been taken to protect our troops in the Middle East?

Sir E. Grigg: This question is receiving most careful consideration, and special measures have been taken to protect our troops in the Middle East against the possibility of an extension of the typhus epidemic outside Europe. The measures already taken include arrangements for the supply of vaccine and the setting up of additional laboratories for diagnostic purposes in the Middle East.

Major Milner: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for that answer, might I ask whether the War Office have consulted with the Russian authorities, who have vast knowledge and experience in this matter?

Sir E. Grigg: I cannot answer that offhand, but I am pretty certain that that is the case.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Has the assistance of the International Red Cross been invoked at any time for dealing with these epidemics?

Sir E. Grigg: I must have notice of that Question.

WELFARE GRANTS, BERKSHIRE.

Sir A. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War the total sum allotted by the General Officer Commanding, of the Command, to the County Welfare Officer for Berkshire for Army welfare in the years 1940 and 1941, respectively; and what sum will be allotted in 1942?

Sir E. Grigg: In the year ended 31st December, 1941, the County Welfare Officer of Berkshire received just over £200 for expenditure on general welfare. This represents less than one-sixth of the total spent by the Command from their grants on the welfare and entertainment of troops in that county, and this figure again excludes supplementary grants to Auxiliary Territorial Service and antiaircraft units. Moreover, grants made to the Command do not by any means represent the total expenditure on welfare and entertainment, for many things are pro-

vided in kind, such as wireless sets and books, or by grants for specific purposes, such as the setting up of quiet rooms. It is not yet possible to say what sum Southern Command will allot to the Berkshire County Welfare Officer in the coming financial year.

Sir A. Knox: Does the hon. Member not agree that for the year 1940–41 the amount at the disposal of the welfare officers was about ½d. per head of the command per annum? Is it not ridiculous that these men should be giving all their time when they have so little funds?

Sir E. Grigg: I do not know what the percentage may be, but the Director-General of Welfare has never complained about lack of funds. I believe that the funds at his disposal are adequate.

Sir A. Knox: Is the Director-General in touch with the people who do the work among the troops?

Sir E. Grigg: Yes, Sir; very closely.

SOLDIER'S GALLANTRY (RECOGNITION).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can give any information in connection with the case of Sergeant Jack Burtonshaw, who saved a regimental sergeant-major from being burnt to death on the Chester-Warrington Road, on Saturday, 20th December; and what recognition has been made of Burtonshaw's conduct?

Sir E. Grigg: Sergeant Burtonshaw's very gallant action in rescuing a regimental sergeant-major from a burning car has been recognised by an official commendation in divisional orders.

STEAMSHIP "DUNERA" (INTERNEES, COMPENSATION).

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for War when it is expected that the arrangements for compensation to the internees who were deprived of their property on the steamship "Dunera" will be completed; how many claims have been dealt with; how much compensation has been given; and how many claims still remain to be dealt with?

Sir E. Grigg: I am unable to give precise figures at present, but the position is that in some 390 cases of claimants who have returned to this country, payments have been made, or are in process of being made, to a total of roughly £4,500.


A further sum of about £1,400 has been authorised for payment to 122 claimants recently returned and will be made shortly. About 1,300 claimants still in Australia are being dealt with through the Home Office representative there who has already made payments in the great majority of cases, and has promised a full report by Air Mail as soon as settlement is completed. It has been found necessary to reserve a certain number of special items which present difficulty, e.g., as regards valuation, for separate consideration, and final settlement of these may take a little longer, but disposal of all outstanding claims is being expedited as much as possible.

Mr. Harvey: While I thank my hon. Friend for his reply, is he aware that the good effect of the prompt action of the Government in granting compensation is being dissipated by the very long delay?

Sir E. Grigg: I am sure that my hon. Friend will realise that the fixing of a valuation that is fair to the taxpayer as well as to the people concerned, is not an easy matter, as some of these articles are very hard to value, especially when they include such things as the value of a novel in manuscript.

Mr. Sorensen: What is likely to be the approximate total of compensation to be paid to these people?

Sir E. Grigg: I must have notice of that question, but we have not got full information from Australia yet.

CADETS.

Major Peto: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the difficulties experienced by officers commanding cadet forces in obtaining the use of appropriate premises for training purposes; and whether he will investigate all cases submitted to him in which unnecessary difficulties are thrown in the way?

Sir E. Grigg: Subject to the exigencies of the Service, cadets may be allowed to use, free of charge, War Department buildings and drill halls rented or leased by Territorial Army Associations. Similarly premises occupied by the Home Guard may be used by cadets at times which will not interfere with the training of the Home Guard. I am not aware of any unnecessary difficulties having been thrown in the way, but if the hon. and

gallant Member has any specific cases in mind, I shall be glad to investigate them.

Major Peto: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider including in the grant of uniform to cadets between the ages of 14 and 17 the issue of greatcoats which are given to cadets over 17 but not to those of the age group in question?

Sir E. Grigg: Greatcoats are not given to cadets over 17 unless they belong to the Home Guard, in which case they are given to them as Home Guards and not cadets. The provision of uniform involves the question of supply of material as well as cost, and I cannot in present circumstances give any undertaking to increase the items of uniform authorised for cadets.

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for War how the capitation and uniform grants and training equipment given to military cadet units compare with those given to the Air Training Corps; and whether military cadet officers will, like Air Training Corps' officers, receive the King's commission?

Sir E. Grigg: As part of the Government policy for taking greater responsibility for training the youth of the country from school-leaving age, the War Office have arranged to increase the size of the Cadet Force, making full use of the advice and the organisation of the British National Cadet Association. The military object of the Cadet Force is to give pre-entry training for the Army, including the Home Guard. At the same time, the Cadet Force, like every other organisation connected with youth, is concerned with the development of the character of its members from the point of view of citizenship as well as of military training. The Cadet Force is to be largely expanded. The following arrangements apply to cadets between the ages of 14 and 17. The annual capitation grant is 13s. 0d. in open units and 11s. 0d. in school units for each qualified cadet, and a further grant of 10s. 0d. is issued for each qualified cadet who obtains certificate "A." In addition, the British National Cadet Association receives a grant of £750 for administration. Battle dress will be provided free. The issue of grants will be subject to the units obtaining a satisfactory report from the War Office inspecting officer


and to fulfilment of certain other conditions of attendance at drills and camp.
As regards training equipment, the Cadet Force receive an issue of the manuals and publications necessary for their training; they may borrow weapons for instructional purposes from their affiliated Home Guard unit, and other training equipment is made available so far as Army stocks permit on repayment from Cadet funds. Full particulars of the grants, etc., given to the Air Training Corps have already been announced. The question of granting King's commissions to Cadet Force officers is under consideration.

Mr. Keeling: Can my hon. and gallant Friend say whether the terms given to Army Cadet Corps are less favourable than those given to the A.T.C.?

Sir E. Grigg: If my hon. Friend will study the answer, I think he will see that they are not.

OFFICERS' PAY (ALLOTMENT).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for War, whether he will consider the advisability of making arrangements for a compulsory allotment from officers' pay in cases where there is deliberate refusal to provide any maintenance for wives; and what the practice in such circumstances is at the present time?

Sir E. Grigg: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative. Apart from other considerations, such an arrangement would involve an amendment of the Army Act. With regard to the second part, the wife may apply to the civil courts for redress.

Mr. Mander: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that it is extraordinarily unfair to the wives of officers to have no opportunity of getting any allowances in a way that does not take place with regard to other ranks; and in view of the many difficult cases that have arisen, will he give further consideration to the matter?

Sir E. Grigg: Yes, Sir.

Miss Eleanor Rathbone: Is this not a question of a very offensive form of class distinction that officers, who are classed as saints, should not be compelled to make an allotment?

EX-OFFICERS (RANK).

Sir A. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that officers who relinquished their commissions at the end of the last war were given a promise, in writing, that they should retain their rank; and will he undertake that such men, when now called up under the National Service Acts, will be allowed to retain their rank, unless they voluntarily renounce it, whether they are selected for service in the Armed Forces or elsewhere?

Sir E. Grigg: My hon. and gallant Friend is evidently under a misapprehension. Officers who served in the last war were granted permission to retain their ranks in civilian life after relinquishing their commissions, as a mark of appreciation for their past services to the country. It was never suggested that this privilege would confer a vested right either to resume a commission, or to retain rank in the event of recall to the Colours. On demobilization, these officers did not pass to any kind of Reserve, and their connection with, and liability to, the Army was completely severed. As regards the second part of the Question, I have nothing to add to the answer given to my hon. and gallant Friend on 8th January, 1942.

Sir A. Knox: Is it not the fact that each of these officers was definitely told in writing at the time that he would be able to retain his rank and did that not include also the return to service, if necessary?

Sir E. Grigg: No, Sir, it did not. Officers were allowed to retain their rank as a mark of distinction in civil life. No indication was given that they could return to the Army as commissioned officers or that they could retain their rank. I must ask my hon. and gallant Friend to remember the case of officers in the last war who have already volunteered for service in the ranks or anywhere else, and to realise that you cannot give the privileges to old officers now being conscribed which are not given to those who have volunteered.

Sir A. Knox: If my hon. Friend will read my Question again he will see that I exclude these people who voluntarily gave up their rank, but there was no mention in the letter that officers could retain their rank only in civil life.

PIONEER CORPS.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a


number of soldiers have been drafted to the Pioneer Corps, and have not handled a rifle for over three months; that some are skilled miners; and whether he will consider allowing those who are not wanted for the use of arms to return to the coalmines?

Sir E. Grigg: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to my hon. Friends the Members for Walton (Mr. Purbrick), Twickenham (Mr. Keeling), and Wycombe (Sir A. Knox) on 30th September, 1941. The decision not to release further coal miners from the Fighting Forces applies equally to all branches of the Army, including the Pioneer Corps, where men with miners' experience are invaluable.

Mr. Tinker: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are men over 30 years of age in the Pioneer Corps, and is it a recognised thing that men under 40 are not called upon to use arms to be ready for any emergency? I will send him cases.

Sir E. Grigg: I shall be glad to look into any case that the hon. Member may send me.

AUXILIARY TERRITORIAL SERVICE.

Colonel Arthur Evans: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is satisfied that the monthly intake of officers into the Auxiliary Territorial Service is sufficient to meet the total requirements of the Army; and whether he will meet these requirements by selecting a reasonable proportion of candidates to fill immobile appointments which would provide potential officer material suited for administrative appointments in the static commands throughout the United Kingdom, such officers, whose immobile obligation would be full time, being subject to normal mobile duties in the event of imminent invasion?

Sir E. Grigg: The monthly intake of Auxiliary Territorial Service officers is sufficient to meet the present needs of the Service, since the formation of the Auxiliary Territorial Service section of the Army Officers Emergency Reserve has enabled us to draw upon a large number of women with suitable qualifications in civilian life. For the reasons given in the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) on 14th October, 1941, immoble units of the Auxiliary Terri-

torial Service have been found not to make for maximum efficiency and therefore all ranks are now required to be mobile.

Colonel Evans: In order that Members of the House may have an opportunity of considering arguments in support of the proposals contained in the Question, I beg to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment at an early date.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENANG EVACUATION (DESTRUCTION OF MATERIAL).

Captain Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for War why the policy of "scorched earth" was not adopted when Penang was evacuated; and why, in particular, the radio station, the smelting works at Butterworth, the stocks of tin, petrol and rubber and the barges were not destroyed?

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for War to what extent were the stores of raw materials, including tin, rubber and oil, left undestroyed when British troops evacuated Penang?

Captain Plugge: asked the Secretary of State for War why, when the British Forces withdrew from Penang, they left a number of vessels in the harbour in a seaworthy condition, which the Japanese were subsequently able to use for landings on the West coast of Malaya; and why such vessels were not destroyed?

Sir E. Grigg: The "scorched earth" policy was carried out in Penang to the maximum extent that was possible under the circumstances. The garrison was small, and worked under great difficulties; the time available was short; considerable disorganisation had been caused by heavy air attacks; and the necessity for concealing the evacuation made the task of demolition more difficult. As regards the particular points raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans), the smelting plant at Butterworth was put out of action and orders given for the destruction of the wireless station. Every effort was made to destroy as much as possible of the stocks of raw materials, and all shipping was removed except for a number of very small craft for which no crews were available. I am satisfied that the local military commander carried out a


most difficult task, with the few men available, to the utmost of his ability.

Mr. Leslie Boyce: Were those orders actually carried out?

Sir E. Grigg: To the best of my knowledge, they were.

Sir Percy Harris: Could the hon. Gentleman explain why so few men were available at such a vital spot at a critical period of the war?

Sir E. Grigg: That is part of a very much larger question, and I do not think it could be suitably discussed by Question and Answer across the Floor of the House.

Mr. Bellenger: Were any plans for demolition drawn up by the military authorities prior to the outbreak of the war?

Sir E. Grigg: I must have notice of that Question.

Mr. Shinwell: Was any attempt made by the military authorities to secure the co-operation of the civil authorities, and, if so, to what extent?

Sir E. Grigg: Yes, Sir. Great difficulties were experienced in that.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS SPEECHES (ELECTRICAL RECORDING).

Captain Plugge: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider making arrangements for the broadcasting of important speeches made in the House of Commons, in view of the fact that such arrangements were made in connection with the recent speeches by the British Prime Minister to Congress in Washington and in the Canadian House of Commons?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I have considered this matter long and carefully and also with diffidence, as to some extent at the present time it affects myself. It certainly would be a very great convenience, and would, I believe, be welcomed by the public, if an electrical record of major statements about the war could be made. This record could be used for subsequent broadcasting, which might be deemed an advantage. In my own case I have been constantly asked to repeat the speech I have delivered in the House over the broadcast later. This

imposes a very heavy strain, and is, moreover, unsatisfactory from the point of view of delivery.
It has been represented to me that in the Dominions and in the United States there are very large numbers of people who would like to listen to a record of the actual speech or parts of it rather than to a news summary, such as are usually compiled—very well compiled—by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Moreover, such a record could be used at the most convenient hours in the various countries concerned, which now encircle the entire globe. I should hope, therefore, that the House might be disposed from time to time to grant me or any successor I may have during the war this indulgence. As an innovation of this kind in our practice should be most carefully watched, I should propose that an experiment should be made in the case of the statement I have been asked to make at an early opportunity upon the present war situation. There must necessarily be in this statement a good deal that is of some interest both in America and Australasia as well as in India and South Africa. A Motion will, therefore, be placed on the Paper for discussion allowing this procedure to be followed on this particular occasion only. As a separate Motion will be required in each individual case, the House would have full control of the practice; and if it were found to be objectionable or invidious or not in the public interest, it could be dropped. Evidently the practice would not be suitable to periods of Party Government.
The record would be the property of this House and its use, in the event of any controversy arising, would be a matter for decision by the House under Mr. Speaker's guidance. As this is a matter which affects the customs of the House, I shall leave the decision to a free Vote.

Sir Hugh O'Neill: I take it that my right hon. Friend did not mean that he would actually broadcast to the public while making his speech [HON. MEMBER: "No".] In any case is it not a fact that the main function of this House is debate and criticism, and if the practice of broadcasting is to be adopted, or possibly even taking records of ex-parte statements by the Prime Minister or anybody else, ought not replies to these speeches to be similarly recorded?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: While I recognise, of course, the great importance of my right hon. Friend's statements and the keen and appreciative desire of the public to hear him, will he bear in mind that Parliament, of its nature, is not a platform but a representative Assembly intended to express the whole will of the nation? Will he, therefore, see that any account that is given of the proceedings of Parliament will be impartial and unbiased and will give expression to all points of view? Before the House is committed to this course and before the Motion is put down, would it not be possible to appoint a Committee under your aegis, Mr. Speaker, to consider this proposal in all its implications?

Captain Plugge: While I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply does he think it right that the British listening public should be granted, through the B.B.C., facilities for listening to an Allied Prime Minister in an Allied Parliament such as a President of the United States in Congress, yet be denied the same facilities for listening to their own Prime Minister in their own Parliament?

Sir William Davison: Are we not right in thinking, from the statement of the Prime Minister, that this would be a purely exceptional war measure when all parties are united under his leadership and that it is not intended to be a precedent for the broadcasting of ordinary matters of party politics?

Mr. Shinwell: Who said so?

Mr. Thorne: Will the Prime Minister consider the advisability of having the speech he made in Canada printed for circulation?

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the two speeches to which the Question refers were not made in the course of Debate, whereas any speech made by my right hon. Friend in this House must be made in the course of Debate and may be criticised by Members of this House, whose criticism may be divorced from his speech?

Mr. Mander: Is it the intention that the whole speech, with any interruption which might occur, would be recorded just as it is made, or would there be editing by Mr. Speaker or anybody else?

The Prime Minister: The idea is that a record should be made for subsequent use. This would be convenient because of the great difference in time between this country and the United States, Australasia, India, South Africa and so forth. I also have the feeling that in the circumstances of this war, when matters have to be spoken of which intimately affect so many of our Dominions and Allies, there might be advantages in taking this course. But I am entirely in the hands of the House. If they do not feel they can give me this easement on this occasion as an experiment, I shall not take it amiss in any way, and I will do my best over the broadcast that evening to repeat what I have said.

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Would my right hon. Friend consider the proposal I have made, which is not made in any way to hamper? Would he appoint some small representative committee of experienced Members of this House who might consider all the implications and various difficulties which might arise—for instance, the difficulties of interruptions?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I am leaving it to the House. I think the House is quite as competent as any particular group of individuals to consider this matter. I dealt myself very carefully with the question of the records. It would be a matter for decision by the House, under Mr. Speaker's guidance, as to whether anything should be left out or should not be reproduced—for instance, if anything was said which revealed a military secret. This is now removed from the published records, and similar latitude would be provided for in this case. I do not propose to adopt the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA (CONSTITUTION).

Dr. Russell Thomas: asked the Prime Minister what reply he has given to the suggestions recently made to him by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, and other distinguished Indian leaders, in regard to the government of India?

Mr. G. Macdonald: asked the Prime Minister whether it has been possible for him to formulate his reply to the appeal made to him by a group of distinguished Indian leaders and whether he is prepared to state the terms of his reply?

The Prime Minister: The communication referred to only reached me at the moment of my departure from the United States, and I could do no more than send an acknowledgment. I will, however, give careful attention to the suggestions which are made, and will thereafter send an answer in terms which can be made public.

Mr. Macdonald: While appreciating that any good military strategy in the Far East at present may be nullified by political strategy which is not equally as good, does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this question of India is arousing great interest throughout this country and the other countries, and will he see that there is no delay whatever in dealing with the problem of the maximum war effort from India?

The Prime Minister: That is always my desire, but I am not sure that the raising of far-reaching constitutional issues at this time, when the enemy is so near the gates of India, would be advantageous to the war effort.

Mr. Macdonald: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that any delay over this question, in view of the present situation in India, may do more harm than good to the war effort?

The Prime Minister: That is a matter of opinion.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG (DEFENCE).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Prime Minister what undertakings were given at the Washington Conference, 1921, by the British Government with regard to not making Hong Kong a first-class fortress; and why, in these circumstances, was an attempt made to defend Hong Kong under conditions which led to the eventual surrender of the garrison?

The Prime Minister: Under Article 19 of the Washington Treaty of Limitation of Naval Armaments of 6th February, 1922, the United States of America, the British Empire, and Japan agreed to maintain the status quo with regard to fortifications and naval bases in the United States of America, the British Empire and Japanese insular territories and possessions in the Pacific Oceans. The Japanese Government denounced the Treaty on 29th December, 1934, and by virtue of that

denunciation the Treaty lapsed on 31st December, 1936. Until the latter date, therefore, His Majesty's Government were precluded from erecting additional fortifications at Hong Kong. As regards the second part of the Question, it is the policy of His Majesty's Government that British territory should be defended to the utmost of our ability with such resources as are at our disposal.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Was sufficient effort made to fortify Hong Kong after the Japanese denounced the Treaty in 1934?

The Prime Minister: That is going back to the year 1936, and I cannot without notice say what steps were taken by the Government of those days, but I think it always has been obvious that the position of Hong Kong would become very precarious, lying as it does so near to the homeland of Japan, in the event of war with that country.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES (PAY AND ALLOWANCES).

Miss Ward: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the promise that a statement would be made early in the New Year, he can now inform the House of the result of the inquiry into allowances to wives and dependants of men in the Fighting Services?

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Prime Minister whether consideration has now been given to the question of the pay of the Armed Forces and allowances made to their dependants; and whether a statement can now be made?

The Prime Minister: I hope it will be possible to make a statement at an early date.

Oral Answers to Questions — AERODROMES (DEFENCE).

Sir Leonard Lyle: asked the Prime Minister whether, to allay the still existing public uneasiness, he will appoint an independent committee of Members of Parliament with experts, a proportion to have had actual experience in this war, to investigate the effectiveness of the new scheme for the protection of aerodromes?

The Prime Minister: As my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal informed the House, the scheme which he recently


announced was the result of an inquiry in which experts with war experience assisted, and it was endorsed by the Chiefs of Staff of the three Services. I do not think that the appointment of a Committee such as is suggested by my hon. Friend is therefore necessary. I may add that when I come to make the statement on Business, I shall announce that there will be an opportunity for an early Debate on this matter which I hope will satisfy my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — WORKS OF ART (ENEMY-OCCUPIED COUNTRIES).

Sir Irving Albery: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the many valuable works of art which have been looted by the Nazis, or acquired under duress, in all the occupied countries, he will give an assurance that the peace terms will include some suitable provision for restitution where possible, and otherwise for the curtailment of facilities for dealing with such loot?

The Prime Minister: His Majesty's Government will naturally bear this question in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — PARLIAMENTARY VACANCIES (NOMINATION OF CANDIDATES).

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the practice which has been prevalent of nomination by the various political organisations to fill a vacancy caused by death or retirement of a Member of Parliament, he can state the total number of candidates returned without a contest since the beginning of the war, and give an assurance that no legislation will be introduced precluding the standing of a candidate for Parliament who is independent and unconnected with the political party organisations, which would have the effect of rendering admission to the House of Commons one of co-option?

The Prime Minister: I have been informed that since war began there have been 47 uncontested and 26 contested returns of hon. Members to this House, and with the exception of one case (Cambridge University), the results have not changed the numerical strength of the different Parties as they stood at the outbreak of war. In reply to the second

part of the Question, it is not proposed to introduce legislation to restrict the nomination of candidates.

Mr. De la Bère: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the whole matter wants a great deal of thought and vigilance so as to see that no abuse does creep into these matters for the duration of the war?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — TAX EVASION.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to a method of tax evasion with Surtax payers and charitable organisations as participants, whereby the Revenue can be deprived of large annual sums and the evaders can be large gainers; and what he proposes to do to prevent this evasion?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I am not aware of any actual instance of the type of transaction which I understand my hon. and gallant Friend to have in mind, but any such scheme will certainly receive my close attention and I shall be glad to receive particulars of any case in which it has been put into practical operation. I should not hesitate to propose, should the need arise, that legislation designed to check evasion should be applied with retrospective effect.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: Do I understand that the Chancellor's powers at the present time are sufficient to prevent such evasion, or not?

Sir K. Wood: I should have to see the case which my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind before replying to that question.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he has any statement to make with regard to to-day's Business, and further, while appreciating the many reasons which prompt the Prime Minister to postpone his statement on the war as a whole, may I ask him whether he appreciates the very grave anxieties felt in all parts of the House with regard to the situation in the Far East and the


importance of having a discussion on it before that situation further deteriorates?

The Prime Minister: Naturally I share the anxieties that are felt at the war in the Far East, but I also share the growing confidence, which I think may also be justified, as to the eventual outcome of this terrible struggle. I propose to devote the first three Sitting Days after 25th January to a general Debate upon the war situation. I think it might be more agreeable to the House if this Debate opened on a Motion for the Adjournment. Should, however, the Debate disclose any situation which seems to involve a challenge to His Majesty's Government, I shall on the second or third Sitting Day put down a Vote of Confidence. As relevant Amendments in any form can be moved to such a Motion, Members would be able to state any differences they may have with the Government in the most effective form, and the House would be enabled to express its opinion not only in speeches in the Debate, but, if it were so desired, in a Division. I propose myself to open the Debate and, if necessary, to wind it up.
Meanwhile, the immediate Business will be as follows:
First Sitting Day—Business previously announced, of which the House is aware.
Second Sitting Day—There is an important Measure, the Landlord and Tenant (Requisitioned Land) Bill, already announced, of which we hope to get the Second Reading and the Committee stage of the Money Resolution.
Third Sitting Day—The Government will be willing to give facilities for a Debate on the Defence of Airfields, upon which there has lately been considerable discussion out of doors. The House and the country are naturally interested in the arrangements recently outlined by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. On the whole, we consider that this Debate should be in public, though this will necessarily impose restraint upon the discussion of the operational aspect. The Debate will take place on a Motion moved by the Secretary of State for Air.
The other Motion to which I referred will be fitted in as convenient either on the second Sitting Day or the third Sitting Day.

SINGAPORE (AIR DEFENCE).

Mr. Granville: In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is not to make a statement with regard to the Far East at this, the first Sitting of the Imperial Parliament since his return from across the Atlantic, I have given you notice, Mr. Speaker, that I would ask leave to move the Adjournment of House of Commons on a matter of definite and urgent public importance, namely, the sending of adequate air reinforcements for the defence of Singapore, and for the purpose of obtaining assurances from His Majesty's Government to the people of this country, Australia and the British Empire that this is being done. I ask your permission to move that Motion.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has begged leave to move the Adjournment of the House on a definite a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the sending of adequate air reinforcements for the defence of Singapore, and for the purpose of obtaining assurances from His Majesty's Government to the people of this country, Australia and the British Empire that this is being done. I am afraid I cannot give leave for that Motion to be moved, because it really does not fulfil the conditions of Standing Order No. 8 which is meant to apply to matters which have suddenly become urgent. No doubt this is a very urgent matter, but it has been urgent for some time, and that particular Standing Order is meant to apply in cases where an emergency has just arisen, and, moreover, it is meant to apply to cases which can only be discussed immediately or not at all. In this particular case we have already been told that the matter is to be debated fully in a short time.

Mr. Granville: With the greatest respect for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, as I consider that the situation in Singapore is so grave and serious, should not this Imperial Parliament take this opportunity, which is the first opportunity since the return of the Prime Minister, to ask the Government for an assurance that aircraft will be sent immediately, particularly fighter aircraft, to the Far East? I submit that this is the first opportunity I have had to raise this matter, which is a serious and grave matter because of the fact that Singapore is likely to be invested in the near future. I submit to you, Sir, that


this is a matter of definite and urgent public importance. The shortage of aircraft in Singapore is a definite fact according to statements in the "Times" newspaper yesterday, and according to Press statements made by Mr. Curtin and by the War Council in Australia.

Mr. Speaker: These are matters which no doubt are questions for discussion, but they are not matters on which I can agree to have a Motion for the Adjournment of the House. I am afraid I cannot agree to allow the hon. Member to have permission to move the Adjournment, because, as I have told him, the conditions do not fulfil what is laid down under Standing Order 8, which is the only Standing Order under which I could give him leave to move the Adjournment.

Mr. Granville: With the greatest respect for your Ruling, may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, for your guidance on this? The Prime Minister has been away from this country for a month. Time after time we have asked for assurances from Cabinet Ministers during his absence, and we have been unable to obtain them. This is the first opportunity which the Imperial Parliament, which has a grave and great responsibility to the British Empire, has to get an assurance and are we not, under Standing Order 8, justified or in Order in asking that the Prime Minister shall now, in view of the representations made in Washington by Mr. Curtin, give an assurance that aircraft will be sent from this country to the assistance of the troops fighting in defence of Singapore?

Mr. Speaker: It is quite in Order for the hon. Member to put his Question in that way, but I am afraid I cannot grant him leave under Standing Order 8.

DEATH OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT AND STRATHEARN.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to express the deep concern of this House at the loss which His Majesty has sustained by the death of His Royal Highness Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, and to condole with His Majesty on this melancholy occasion; and to assure His Majesty that this House will ever participate with the most affectionate and dutiful attachment in whatever may concern the feelings and interests of His Majesty.
The late Duke of Connaught lived a life so long that it was not only a link with the tranquil days of the Victorian era, when a large number of people had persuaded themselves that most of the problems of society were solved, but also a link with the life of the Duke of Wellington. During the whole of his career, mainly in the British Army, he was a devoted, faithful officer and servant of the Crown. He field a position of delicacy, not free from difficulty beset on every side by the possibility of indiscretion when such a position is occupied by one who is a son of a Queen, afterwards a brother of a King, uncle of another Sovereign and the great uncle of a fourth Ruler. In that position, never did anything occur which did not make the public realise how true the Duke of Connaught was to all the constitutional implications of his position, and all who came into contact with him were impressed by his charm of manner, by his old-world courtesy, and knew that they were in the presence of a great and distinguished representative of the beloved Royal House.
I have had many opportunities of meeting his Royal Highness, who was a friend of my family, and I enjoyed his friendship. I served under his command, in 1895, as a young officer at Aldershot, and I know the respect and esteem in which he was held by all the troops and all the ranks in the Forces. For my part, I am very glad to feel that he lived long enough to see the dark, frightful crisis with which we were confronted 18 months ago broaden out into a somewhat clearer and more hopeful light.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: My hon. friends have asked me to associate them with the well-chosen tribute which the Prime Minister has paid to the late Duke of Connaught. Here

may I say how glad we are to have the right hon. Gentleman back with us to take part in our discussions. The Duke of Connaught was one of those who have helped to make this country great, not because of his Royal parentage, nor because of the numberless titles which were heaped upon him, but because as a man he possessed a sterling character and exhibited unfailing tact and kindness. Whatever job he was given to do, he did it with all his might, and however difficult and embarrassing was the task assigned to him, he extracted from it the maximum amount of benefit for the public weal. As an officer, he won the affection as well as the loyalty of his troops. As a Governor, he was appreciated by statesmen and beloved by the people. No one could meet him, even in the most casual way, without being impressed by his personality. The vigour which he retained to an advanced age betokened the keen soldier; his bright eye, the vital force within and his smile, the friendly traditions and nature of the man. Fortunate has been our country in being able to command the unsparing services of such a man.

Sir Percy Harris: I consider it a privilege to be associated with this Motion, which is according to immemorial custom, but in this case, is no mere formality. His Royal Highness endeared himself to many generations of his countrymen, not only in this country, but in Canada, in India, in South Africa and in Ireland. His Royal Highness, as a keen soldier, chose the Army as his profession and saw much service, but he will always be remembered most as Governor-General of Canada, where he did so much to strengthen the bonds between that Dominion and the Crown. His Royal Highness was a great gentleman. He could have lived a life of leisure but preferred one of public service under five Monarchs. I feel honoured to be allowed to be associated with this Motion.

Question put, and agreed to nemine contradicente.

Resolved:
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to express the deep concern of this House at the loss which His Majesty has sustained by the death of His Royal Highness Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn; and to condole with His Majesty on this melancholy occasion;


and to assure His Majesty that this House will ever participate with the most affectionate and dutiful attachment in whatever may concern the feelings and interests of His Majesty.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of His Majesty's Household.

Orders of the Day — EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Provision as to supply of food and clothing to school-children.)

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I desire to move, in page 1, line 5, after "1908," to insert "and the Education (Scotland) Act, 1913."
This Amendment together with the two following Amendments on the Paper and the Amendment to Clause 3, in my name, are drafting Amendments designed to clarify the meaning and facilitate the administration of this Measure by the education authorities. These Amendments have been examined and approved by the Education Committee of the Association of County Councils in Scotland and are, therefore, to be regarded as a serious attempt to improve the wording of the Bill. As you, Colonel Clifton Brown, will have gathered from your examination of these Amendments they are linked together and it may, therefore, be convenient if you permit me, while dealing with the first Amendment, to refer to the others as they form one group. The chief purpose of these Amendments is to avoid in this Scottish Measure the long-standing and rear evil of legislation by reference. This is a problem which the House of Commons has considered on many occasions. Time and again, the system of legislation by reference has been condemned. The Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary of State have, I am sure, expressed the same views about it in the past, and indeed I think we are all at one in seeking to prevent legislation by reference. The present Bill affords an opportunity to translate into practice the unanimous wish of all parties in this respect.
The Committee will observe that Clause 1 proposes to reveal Section 6 of the 1908 Act. That Section, as the Secretary

of State explained during the Second Reading Debate, obliges school boards to provide food and clothing under certain conditions, for school-children who, by reason of the lack of food or clothing, are unable to take full advantage of the education provided for them. That Section, as I reminded the House, was the first step forward on the road towards the feeding and clothing of necessitous children. Conditioned though it was by provisos which we regard now as unnecessary, it was a measure of great enlightenment at that time, 34 years ago, and the Liberal Government which was responsible for it deserve recognition and gratitude to-day for the courage and warm-hearted sense which they showed. Without it, we should not have attained anything like the progress which has characterised Scottish health and education in the last two generations.
Clause 1 of the present Bill is designed to take the place of Section 6 of the 1908 Act, and therefore that enactment is to be repealed. I entirely agree with that suggestion. It is a sensible and I think a proper step. Its effect will be to bring the law up to date, a very laudable object, and the Committee, no doubt, assume that, in consequence, country clerks and their staffs need no longer turn up Section 6 of the old Act to keep themselves right in their procedure. But the Committee would be wrong in coming to any such comforting conclusion and for this reason. Five years after the passing of the 1908 Act, another Measure was placed on the Statute Book, namely, the Education (Scotland) Act, 1913, which extended the obligations of the school boards to the provision, in addition to food and clothing, of medical, including surgical and dental, treatment for needy schoolchildren. It laid down that the powers and duties of school boards in this regard should be governed by the provisions of Section 6 of the 1908 Act and that is why I submit that it is in Order to discuss this 1913 Act now, because it is related directly to the 1908 Act, Section 6 of which is being repealed by the present Bill. That 1913 Act, with its most valuable provisions, remain and is intended by the present Bill to remain a separate enactment, to which reference must be made on every occasion when medical attention for school-children is tinder consideration. Of course, every time reference is made to it a further cross-reference must


necessarily be made still further back to the 1908 Act.
Surely that is a cumbersome, time-wasting and irritating procedure, which ought to be abolished. There is no need for it that I can see, and it could be abolished by repealing the 1913 Act, as we propose to repeal the 1908 Act and incorporating its provisions in the present Measure. That is what my Amendments seek to do. The Under-Secretary has been good enough to remind me, through the Fife County Council, of what the position is, and I should like to quote from his letter on this subject:
This is what he said:
It is not necessary to include the 1913 Act in the present Bill. If the Bill becomes law in its present form the provisions contained in Clause I will have effect in lieu of Section 6 of the 1908 Act, and consequently the reference in the 1913 Act to the provisions of Section 6 of the 1908 Act will, in accordance with Section 38 (1) of the Interpretation Act of 1899, be construed as a reference to the new provisions in Clause 1 of the Bill.
I do not know whether that delightful piece of bureaucratic jargon impresses the Committee, or indeed comforts it, any more than it did me, but my reaction to it was to hold up my hands in horror and swear volubly. For indeed all that this masterpiece does is to swop one historical reference for another, and to jump seven years further back into the bargain. Now, instead of having to dive 33 years into legislative antiquity as authority for urgent work to be done in 1942, we are adjured by the Under-Secretary to go 50 years back. Surely this is a farce which the House of Commons ought to avoid, and I feel that I shall have the support of the Committee in endeavouring to grasp the nettle of legislation by reference and, as far as possible, crush it.
My first Amendment proposes to repeal the Act of 1939, the second is consequential, and the third, introducing a redrafting of Clause 1 seeks to incorporate the sense of the operative Clause of the 1913 Act. In fact, I am proposing to do with the 1913 Act precisely what my right hon. Friend is doing with the 1908 Act. He is repealing the Section concerned and incorporating its provisions in this Bill. I was advised after my Amendments had been put on the Paper, that their wording as they now stand would limit the scone of Clause 1 of the Bill and that a slight alteration can meet those defects. I have therefore handed in two manuscript

Amendments which I am advised on the best authority restore to Clause 1 all the powers which that Clause now has. I apologise for presenting Amendments in draft. I could have had them printed, but I was informed by the Clerk at the Table that to do so would mean redrafting the whole Order Paper. My last Amendment seeks to delete paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 3 and incorporate them in the earlier Amendments. I make this suggested change for the sake of neatness and to overcome the slight difficulty that under the Bill as it stands children under five who have not yet attended school are, nevertheless, under Clause 1 (b), to be examined to see whether or not they are unable to take full advantage of the education offered. It seems a little difficult when they are not being educated at all. The purpose of the Amendments is to make the Bill clear and compact and ready to use, and to avoid this troublesome business of cross-reference. I feel that if, by spending a little thought and care now we can speed the beneficent work of the authorities later on, we shall have done a very good piece of work for Scotland.

The Deputy-Chairman: I have listened very carefully to what the hon. Member has said, but I am afraid that an Amendment dealing solely with the provision of medical treatment of children is outside the scope of the Bill, and I cannot put it. I must rule it out of Order.

Mr. Stewart: Would you suggest to me, Colonel Clifton Brown, how one can meet this difficulty of cross-reference? If it is right to repeal one Act dealing with education and incorporate its provisions into this Bill, how do you advise me to proceed about repealing another Act?

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid I cannot give advice as to procedure on that matter. The Bill repeals one Section of the 1908 Act, but I cannot advise how to repeal another Act. That is surely for the hon. Member to find out himself.

Mr. Stewart: The 1908 Act is the governing Act for the operation of the 1913 Act, and my suggestion is that the 1913 Act is going to be left somewhat in the air as the result of this Bill, and in order to make the 1913 Act, which my right hon. Friend wishes to remain in operation, quickly and easily ascertainable, I feel that there is no way except to repeal it and incorporate its provisions


here. If the Title of the Bill needs alteration in order to meet the point, I should be prepared to move the necessary Amendment to the Title.

The Deputy-Chairman: That is purely a question of machinery. It does not seem to me that, because an Act is the operating Act, I should be called upon to give any Ruling which would change the machinery, because the 1913 Act is also based on the 1908 Act. It does not fall within my province. The hon. Member has made his point quite clear, but I do not think it is a matter on which I can give advice or a Ruling.

Mr. Stewart: I beg to move, in page 1, line 21, to leave out Sub-section (3).
This is designed for a very much wider purpose. The Sub-section empowers an education authority, after it has provided food and clothing under Sub-section (2), to recover the cost from the parents of the child. I am not clear whether the same sequence takes place in the case of Sub-section (1), where the power to provide meals is only permissive. Is the provision of meals in Sub-section (1) to be conditional or not upon payment by the parents? That has not been made clear, and I am told that there is some doubt about it. Whatever the sequence, the parent is to be required to pay, or to show reason by the production of particulars of his income why he cannot pay, for the food or any part of its cost. The purpose of the Amendment is to abolish this approach to the parent and to make the provision of food and clothing, to use the words of the Under-Secretary, "part and parcel" of the educational system in Scotland.
It is already the established policy of the State to ensure that all children shall have a basic education in Scotland for a continuous period between 5 and 14. Parents are obliged to see that this is done, and such education is regarded as the right of every child to be enjoyed free of any financial cost to the parent. That step was not taken without criticism. It was criticised on the twin grounds of expense and undermining the responsibility of parents. The same objections are now advanced against the further step which I am here proposing. These earlier criticisms are now condemned by all parties on the simple argument that it is in the national interest that the rising generation

of British citizens should be properly educated. It is regarded as in the highest national interest that that education should be universal and free. Since then that free right has been extended to include school books and many other educational services which at one time had to be paid for by the parents. Nobody contends that these rights have involved an undue financial obligation on the State or undermined parental responsibility.
What grounds are there, therefore, for advancing such outworn contentions in the case of feeding children? It was admitted that they were wrong in the case of educating children; why bring up these old-fashioned, out-of-date theories in the case of feeding children? Science and knowledge have advanced greatly in the last decade. We know that good feeding is essential to children if they are to benefit from their education. If they are not fed, the education will be wasted. It is universally accepted that sound nutrition in a growing child is as necessary as sound schooling in the national interest. I urge the Committee to bring its mind back to that fundamental need, the national need. We ought not to be concerned with whittling down this great Measure merely because Mr. A or Mr. B can or cannot afford to pay. It is in the nation's interest that the children should be educated and fed. I challenge any hon. Member to contradict either of these propositions. If they are accepted, where is the logic or sense in opposing a proposal to put nutrition on the same basis as education, that is, as a right freely at the disposal of every British child? There used to be and still is a good deal of criticism about the issue of free school books, on the ground that because they are free they are not valued and are misused. Nobody in any circumstances can say this of the free midday meal. It is something which no child can possibly ill-use or waste. Of all the free services of the State, this is the most economical, the most valuable and the one offering the best return. There may be waste in books and in education itself, but in a properly organised service not one penny of the State's funds need be wasted in providing a wholesome and substantial midday dinner for all children who want it.
The latest report of the Scottish Education Department shows that there are about 765,000 children on the school rolls.


My right hon. Friend has indicated that he wants to give the midday meal to 20 per cent. of them, that is, 150,000. At 5d. per meal, which is putting it at the highest figure my right hon. Friend mentioned—in some cases it is as low as 3d.—for five days a week and for 40 weeks a year, the total involved would be £640,000 a year. That is as about as much as the House authorises the Government to spend every hour of the war. Apparently, for the cost of one hour of the war we are to scrimp the feeding of Scottish children. If we do not spend this amount we may spend double the money in hospital charges, medical fees, nurses, medicines anti so on. And note the difference it would make to the minds and, therefore, to the health and general bearing of the children if a measure of the kind I suggest were adopted. Consider what will happen when this Bill becomes law. Johnnie's father is a munitions worker earning £6 a week. Jimmie's father is a ploughman earning £3 a week. Johnnie is an only child, but Jimmie has four brothers and a sister all at school. That is not unusual and it was my own experience. Johnnie's father can afford to give him 2s. a week for the school meal. That would be only 1/60th of his income. In order to do the same Jimmie's father would have to pay 12s. a week for his six children and that would involve 1/5th of his income, which he would be unable to meet. Is there any boy of spirit placed in Jimmie's circumstances day after day who would not feel wretched and sick at heart? I cannot conceive a system more directly calculated to breed class-distinctions and all the evil and unhappiness that come with it.
There may be something to be said for a means test imposed by the Minister of Pensions when soldiers' dependants appeal for Special Grants. There is nothing in justice, humanity or national pride to be said for a test of means to be applied daily on little children who need a midday meal. If we pass it, this will be the meanest means test in the Statute Book. It will negative the whole purpose of the Bill, for rather than submit his children to invidious distinctions, the ploughman will instruct his children not to line up in the queue but to go into the fields at lunch-time to eat their modest "piece," and because they are not debited in health and so "unable to take full ad-

vantage of the education provided" they will be outside of the control of the Secretary of State and among the tens of thousands who do not show that welcome percentage growth of which my right hon. Friend spoke so acceptably on the Second Reading. I believe the Secretary of State to be sincere in the object he has in mind. As much as any man in our time he has laboured for the better feeding of children. But of what avail will be all his sincerity if he has not the courage to make his plan effective? Now is his opportunity, when war provides exceptional reasons—mothers in factories, mothers working out; now, when the hearts of all men warm to the sacrifice of blitzed homes and brave mothers. Now is the opportunity, which may never return to him, for my right hon. Friend to do the big thing for Scottish children and, through them, for the nation as a whole.
Of what can my right hon. Friend be afraid? Is it the Treasury? If Parliament thought that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood in the way of this small but important reform, my right hon. Friend would not be in office for many hours. The county councils? Surely not. Some of them are reactionary bodies, I admit, but if Parliament laid it down that it was to be the duty of county councils to provide free meals for all children, can it be said seriously that the county councils would refuse to work the Act? They are working innumerable unwelcome measures of Civil Defence, and there is no word of complaint. Do not let me hear that excuse. Who can it be then? This House of Commons? In the Report of the Scottish Education Department we have had a summary of that remarkable book published by Mr. Seebohm Rowntree on his social investigations in York. It is worth while quoting from him, because what applies to York applies, I am certain, to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and other Scottish towns. In York nearly one-third of the 16,000 families visited were found to be living below the poverty line, fixed at the standard of living possible for a family of five. Over half the working class children there are born into families living in poverty. It has been said by the Under-Secretary of State that this Bill is a war-time Measure. Yes, but my right hon. Friend has larger ideas than that. He is looking to the future,


he is looking for a better world. This is his great chance to lay foundations for that better world. I shall be very sorry if, knowing my right hon. Friend's sympathy, and knowing how ready the House is to meet proposals of this kind, my right hon. Friend rejects this Amendment. I hope that he will not, because I and my friends here regard it as a matter of high principle upon which, if necessary, the opinion of the Committee must be taken.

The Deputy-Chairman: Mr. Garro Jones.

Mr. Magnay: On a point of Order. Has the Amendment been seconded?

The Deputy-Chairman: We are in Committee, and no seconder is required.

Mr. Garro Jones: I hesitate to say anything in criticism of this Bill, having regard to the powerful array of Scottish Ministers who have backed it, but really this is not a very noble Measure. For the sake of preventing some advantage being conferred upon one parent in 20,000 who, being able to provide these benefits for his child, omits to do so, we shall impose upon all other parents the means test to which the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) has referred. So I say that on principle it is not a Bill of which my right hon. Friend or his colleagues can be proud. Neither, in my view, is it a particularly good Measure from the point of view of clear thinking and lucidity. If my right hon. Friend will look at this Sub-section, he will find that where an education authority make provision for a child they shall be entitled to recover from the parent the expense thereby incurred. How are they to recover it? Is it to be recovered by judicial process? Or is it to be recovered by some novel process of which we have not been informed? I invite the Lord Advocate or the Solicitor-General for Scotland to consider this point. If it is to be recovered by legal process, what is to be the evidence brought before the court? The Sub-section says that if the authority are satisfied that the parent is unable to pay the whole of the expense they are to be entitled to recover from him such part of that expense as in their opinion he is able to pay. How ludicrous that an authority should go before a court in Scotland and say simply,

"We consider that this parent can pay so much of this expense," without any need to produce evidence of the parent's means. It is merely a question of their opinion. Unless something can be said by one of the Ministers to justify the Committe in passing this Sub-section, we shall be well advised to insist upon the Clause being taken back for further consideration, with instructions to submit something better.

Mr. Magnay: It is with some diffidence that I enter this Debate, being a mere Englishman, but a serious matter of principle is involved here, because if this Amendment were carried, it would be, in my opinion, the first step towards getting better conditions for the United Kingdom generally. We often hear it asked "Stands Scotland where she did?" I should like to ask "Stands Scotland where she should be?" I have always had a great respect for the Scot. I have always esteemed him as being fundamentally right and as affording us a very good example, in most cases, certainly in the matter of education We have read the biographies of great Scotsmen and have learned with amazement, and with some envy, how they came over the hills to college with the grace of God in their hearts and a sack of oatmeal on their backs. That is what happened a long time ago. Now we live in far different times. New occasions teach new duties. Lest one good custom should corrupt the world we ought to take a new view in these days. It is obvious that we have a better background for the discussion of this point than we should have had 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago. The test of civilisation is the care that is taken of the child. Parents are judged by what they do for their children, what sacrifices, if need be, they make for their children. A civilisation cannot boast of being a great civilisation until it takes the greatest care of the child.
The Clause under discussion seems to me to be one of the most pettifogging things ever presented to Parliament. I am amazed at the lack of attendance on the part of Members of the Labour party on an important occasion such as this, and that it should be left to me to support this Amendment. Coming from a distressed area and being secretary of a distressed areas committee in the United Kingdom for the last 10 years, I have heard much said about the Government imposing a


means test, yet now the Government are proposing to do the same in this case, and, to use a popular turn of speech, to take it out of the guts of the bairns. In plain English, that is what the Bill means. The Bill is not in consonance with the Youth Movement, which we as a people consider to be the best and most important part of after-war legislation. We shall be acting contrary to the spirit of such a movement if we support the Bill while it contains this Sub-section.
I admit that there are arguments in favour of the means test, and I have stood up for a means test on proper occasions in this House, but not against old age pensioners whose only fault is that they have lived too long and thereby have exhausted their meagre capital, or against children, which should be the last thing in our minds. The children should come first. Well-to-do schools have an inclusive fee to cover the cost of good food, usually excellent and well-balanced meals. My children have gone to such schools, where good food was part of the curriculum. The fee which the ratepayers, not only of Scotland but of England, pay, should be an all-inclusive one, covering the necessary food. I take only one exception to the speech made by the mover of the Amendment, and that is to what he said about education and food. I would put food first. St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans that things natural should be put first and then should come things spiritual. We are taught to pray for our food—
Give us this day our daily bread"—
before praying for forgiveness of our sins. This makes our religion the most reasonable in the world. First of all, we must be natural. We must feed the bairns, because only when they are well fed can we expect them to be reasonable. I am amazed at the lack of attendance on the part of Members of the Labour party. Two Members of that party—this may be the reason or the excuse—propounded the Bill, but they have not the guts to get up to fight it out, as would have been done if another party had been concerned.

Mr. Garro Jones: Having regard to the fact that I ran counter to my normal inclinations by giving the Amendment far more support than I felt it was entitled to, having regard to where I stand, I do not think that what the hon. Member has just said is justified.

Mr. Magnay: I know that the hon. Member has a great idea of his own importance, and it is no doubt well justified, but I cannot see how one speech can explain 80 Members not being present. I do not see how one Member, by taking thought, can add one cubit to the stature of the party. I thank the hon. Member for his support. His speech will be read, no doubt, with great interest and approval in Aberdeen. I know Aberdeen very well, and I know Edinburgh. Ministers may say that there would be local difficulties if the Amendment were accepted, but difficulties are made to be overcome. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty, while the pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. Mobile canteens are fairly common now and become more and more the fashion. There are opportunities now for communal feeding, since British Restaurants are being set up in all sorts of places. Why cannot these facilities be used in this matter?
It is a mean and shabby thing to make invidious distinctions between parents who can afford to pay for a meal and those who cannot. I remember when we used to pay our school fees and buy our school books, and I can see now the kiddies coming out and getting slapped, six on each hand, because they had not the money to buy their school books. I remember how deeply I felt this matter in my heart, and the vows I made that when I got bigger I would do something to that school teacher for striking the kiddies for what they could not help. We shall be behaving in the same spirit by this Bill. There are parents who, because of misfortune caused by a thousand different things, cannot afford to pay for the meals. We should be the last to do anything which would depreciate the standard of the children's intellect and spirit. Girls will be able to learn how to cook. Boys will learn table manners. That is worth thinking about. The boys and girls will be made nicer to meet and to mix with after they have become accustomed to communal feeding, each attending to the wants of the others. The Minister is the very last man who, I should have thought, would find it possible to bring in these invidious distinctions between parents who cannot help themselves. He should see that the children get the food that they require.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I find myself in the peculiar position of supporting the Bill wholeheartedly, against the Amendment. I never heard such unreal speeches in my life. I take the last remark made by the hon. Member who has just spoken. I did not notice the great desire to do away with the contributions made by senior schools in respect of five years. I wonder whether my hon. Friend quite appreciates what has happened. The Bill applies to Scot land, where the position is rather different. Secondly, he said at the end of his speech that girls would learn to cook. What girls are going to learn to cook?

Mr. Magnay: The Secretary of State said that.

Mr. Lindsay: I know, in the long run, perhaps, but this Bill is supposed to be a war Measure. Even if the right hon. Gentleman did say it, the point is that you are going to provide, as a war measure, a larger number of school meals, with very great difficulty. I wish Scotland could have what is much more common in England, a senior school with vegetables grown in the garden and cooking learnt on the premises, and with a very large measure of support within the school. That is not what happens in my county, where a very large number of the meals will be brought in containers. I very much doubt whether that is the best method of doing it, but it is better than nothing. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Stewart) says that the Bill proposes a means test which will operate against poor children. The whole basis of school feeding up to the present has been to give food to necessitous children. As unemployment decreases, the feeding of necessitous children goes down too, as everybody knows, until you get to the point where, if unemployment faded away, there would be very few necessitous children who would require feeding.
There is, however, another point which is entirely new, namely, that it is a good thing educationally and socially to have a meal as part of the school curriculum. It is a perfectly sound proposition, and its advantages are fully known, but it is obviously not a thing which can be made compulsory. Many parents still prefer to provide a meal at home, especially in cities, where families live round the corner, and it is not always an easy thing to persuade parents to let their children

pay 3d., 4d. or 5d. a week for the school meal. In fact, the only successful paying meals have been in the countryside in England, especially where distances have to be travelled. It is therefore reading a great deal too much into this Bill to suppose that my right hon. Friend intends to provide one-fifth of the children in Scotland with free meals while the other four-fifths are to be kept at a disadvantage. That is such an obvious point that I will not pursue it.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: But whose fault will that be?

Mr. Lindsay: Never mind whose fault it will be. I am facing facts, and my hon. Friend must face the fact as to what is likely to happen in the next four or five years. I do not accept this Bill as a postwar Measure. We shall expect something entirely different. What my hon. Friend has been confusing with this problem is something much wider, namely, the incidence of poverty, which occurs somewhere about the third child. There is therefore a very real problem of poverty among families with many children, and there are many ways of tackling the problem, one of them being by the introduction of family allowances to the parents of large families. If my hon. Friend thinks that that very serious problem can be dealt with by a free school meal, I beg to differ. There is a further point. The cost of this meal is to be 3d., 4d. or 5d. a week. My hon. Friend who has just spoken says, Why not have an all-inclusive fee? What does he mean? There is no fee; we are talking about free education.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The State pays the fee, does it not?

Mr. Lindsay: Of course the State pays the fee. If my hon. Friend is suggesting that a free meal should be part of the curriculum of every school, he is in fact suggesting meals for a few and no meals for the great majority of the children.

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is putting into our minds thoughts which we never imagined at all. Our point is quite clear. We recognise that this must go by stages, but our ultimate aim is that every child who desires it—there will be no compulsion—shall be given a free midday meal as part of its school curriculum.

Mr. Lindsay: Ultimately you may get a great many things, but in the meantime there will be gross inequalities. On what


basis will children be provided with free meals? [An HON. MEMBER: On the basis of necessity."] That is being done already and has been done for many years. Any child in England or Scotland who needs a meal is entitled to-day to a meal free. That is nothing new. If, however, it is suggested that a meal should be provided as part of the school curriculum, without any way of deciding as to who receives the meal, it will be absurdly unfair and administratively unworkable. Administrative difficulties are usually made to be overcome, but this cannot be worked. To give a universal provision of meals throughout the schools would mean an entirely new set-up. There would have to be canteens and things like that, and I am absolutely certain that on that basis there would be absurd inequalities between different children.
That, however, is not the only point. There is a third point which my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife made. He said that it would be possible to provide meals in these schools in the near future. I do not know on what knowledge of the Scottish local education authorities and of the war position he bases that opinion. If he seriously thinks it will be possible to set up and equip canteens for the whole of the Scottish children, or even for a high proportion of them, during the coming year, I. must be deeply misinformed. I have made inquiries, and I think it would be impossible. It is possible, as a war measure, to feed a larger number of children, and I am in favour of using every possible occasion for furthering measures on which there is a wide measure of agreement. That is a perfectly sound proposition, but this, I think, is a highly controversial one, and its administrative difficulties make it impracticable. I cannot see how it would operate except with gross inequality to a number of children who may not be able to take advantage of the facilities provided in the areas of one or two local education authorities.
I do not think this is a very large Bill. It is a useful Measure, and I shall be glad to see it pass, but I do not think it is fair to my right hon. Friend to try and work into it a vast new scheme of social improvement when it is doubtful whether that improvement could take place for a number of years. Further, if the supporters of this suggestion are going to speak again, I would like them to give us

some further argument, or at any rate to explain how it comes within the bounds of practicability.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): May I bring the Committee back to a sense of what the facts are in this matter? The facts are that necessitous children are now fed, under some authorities in Scotland, under something in the nature of a means test. To get even that feeding of necessitous children there is a long and elaborate procedure, a humiliating procedure, which is abandoned and abolished by this Bill. To the feeding of the necessitous child, it is proposed to make a number of additions. Obligations will be laid upon every local authority, and where we can prove that a local authority is not fulfilling its obligations, we shall have power to insist upon its doing so. In addition to all that, we are providing by this Bill for national nutrition on the widest possible scale. What the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) said a moment ago was perfectly true. If we could ask for power to feed the whole of the children who attend the schools, there would be a great deal to be said for defraying the whole of the cost. There are local authorities now which are feeding no children. There is a gradation of local authorities which feed children right up to, I am happy to say, in my own County of Stirling, 25 per cent., and in Ayrshire, 20 per cent. But between 25 per cent. in Stirlingshire right down through that gradation, we have to face the fact that it would be a tremendous matter in organisation, in feeding equipment, in cooking appliances, in teachers, and all the rest of it, to get up to 20 or 25 per cent. for the whole country. It will be a tremendous thing, and it will take a long time unfortunately to do it in these days. Supposing by hon. Friend's Amendment were carried and there were, under one authority, 20 per cent. being fed, and 80 per cent. whom the authority was unable to feed; who is going to select the 20 per cent.?

Mr. Henderson Stewart: How are you doing it now?

Mr. Johnston: We are doing it now, first, on the ground of necessity: secondly, we are saying that we will feed the rest on the grounds of nutrition. But observe what will happen if this Amendment is carried. With the limited supply


of food, the limited supply of equipment, and with the ability to feed, say, at a maximum 20 or 25 per cent. who is to select the children? Who are to be given the food?

Mr. Garro Jones: I may be under a misapprehension, but I understand that the children will then be selected on the basis of Sub-section (2). That will remain intact in the Bill, and it will only be compulsory on the local authorities to provide food for those children who, without it, cannot take full advantage of the education provided.

Mr. Johnston: I have already made that point. I have said it would be our duty to press laggard local authorities to see that every necessitous child is fed first. But on top of that we must do our utmost to see that the maximum communal nutrition is provided. I do not wish to be led away from my point. How are we going to select the children if this Amendment is carried? [Interruption.] No one in Scotland thinks it is easy. There is not a solitary local authority in Scotland to-day supporting this Amendment. Indeed, I regret to say I have local authorities in Scotland which are solemnly passing resolutions not to feed—

Mr. Henderson Stewart: You are supporting the Tories now.

Mr. Johnston: That is an offensive suggestion, a most offensive suggestion, and one which I utterly resent. It is unwarranted, and I hope that the hon. Member will not repeat it. There are local authorities which are solemnly passing resolutions that if this Bill is passed, so far as the communal nutrition side is concerned, they will not operate it. Well, we shall have to persuade them. The obligation to feed the necessitous child remains, and it certainly is our duty to see, first of all, that every necessitous child is fed. Again, I repeat, who is to select the children if we are able to provide cooked food for only 20 or 25 per cent.? Who is to select the children on the basis that it is all to be free? The headmaster? Not a headmaster in Scotland would touch it. An invidious distinction, a test, most certainly there would be. It would be a most invidious test for a teacher or headmaster to apply. Unless and until we can say that we can supply food for 100 per cent. of the children attending the schools, a test of some kind

must be made, and it is unfair, unjust and unreasonable to put upon the headmaster the task of selecting which child is to have it and which child is not.
An attempt has been made to-day to say that education is free, and that therefore feeding is free. But feeding is not compulsory under this Bill; education is compulsory, but feeding is not. Surely nobody in this House would say to a parent whose home is adjacent to a school, "You shall be compelled to send your child to a meal at school." I do not envy anyone who tries to do that. There is no analogy between free education and free nutrition at this moment. It might be, and indeed I look forward to the day, when we shall be able so to develop our nutritional facilities that we shall be able to do many things in school which we are not able to do now. All that this Bill does is to maintain the provisions whereby a necessitous child is fed, to abolish once and for all the long, humiliating rigmarole of procedure which must be followed before that necessitous child is fed, and on top of that to see to the maximum of our ability that communal feeding centres are provided for all such: children whose parents are able to pay. We go further than that. We say that even if the parent is not able to pay in full, the duty shall be upon the local authority to ask the parent to pay such proportion as he is able and willing to pay.
I go further, and say that we have already said to the local authorities that in any charges they may make they are not to charge anything for equipment. It is only the bare cost of food that is concerned. That, I submit, is at present all that we can reasonably ask, in view of our limited facilities. If we go further we shall wreck this Bill. If we attempt to impose upon the local authorities provisions which they will not regard as reasonable, and which cannot indeed be justified at any bar of public opinion, if we attempt to impose upon them the obligation to select children, to feed those selected children and leave the others not fed, to have class distinction between the children, and all the rest of it, we shall, in my judgment, render this Bill of no avail and we might as well abandon, during war-time at all events, our attempts at organised communal nutrition of the school children. For those reasons I trust that the Committee will reject the Amendment.

Mr. McLean Watson: I have not the slightest quarrel with the hon. Member who moved this Amendment. I quite approve of the idea that lies behind it. But I feel compelled to say a word or two on the Amendment in view of the taunts that came from the supporter on the other side. The hon. Member for Gateshead taunted the Labour party with not being here to support the Amendment. I am not saying that the Labour party, and particularly the Scottish Members, should not have been here; but perhaps there are other Scottish Members in the same position as myself. I had my last meal at home at 7 o'clock last night. I have been on the road since shortly after 8 o'clock last night and I came straight here, knowing that this Bill was under discussion. We do not need to be reminded from the other side that there is a war on. This is a Bill to deal with conditions which are prevailing, and which will prevail after the war. It is strange to hear such speeches made from that side of the House. If there is any credit due to any party for feeding school children, it is not due to the Tory party in this House. This system had to be forced upon Government after Government, and we considered that a great step forward had been made when we got the principle accepted that it was the duty of each education authority to provide meals for school children.
I am prepared to accept this Measure, with all its limitations, but it is much more limited that I should have liked it to be. I would like a properly organised system of providing all school children with midday meals. I would also like to see such equipment at all schools as would enable girls to learn cooking in a practical way. But what is the position? Take the county from which I come. We have established a cooking centre, in order to supply a number of British Restaurants in its neighbourhood. In addition, there are mobile canteens and that cooking centre is used partly to provide a midday meal to school children in the area. That is a beginning. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland opened that cooking centre recently. There are great possibilities. There is no reason why all the school children in that area should not be provided ultimately with a good hot midday meal. The children who are fortunate enough to get meals from that centre are

undoubtedly getting good meals now. That system can be extended indefinitely. But if these cooking centres are the best we can do in present circumstances, the girls who are attending school will be robbed of a form of education that is necessary. We have to face that. It is the best we can do in the circumstances of the moment. Not only children, but adults, are being fed from that cooking centre.
The hon. Gentleman tried to lead the Committee to believe that the whole thing was simple. I would like to tell my right hon. Friend that since he opened that cooking centre, and since these mobile canteens have been used to distribute food, it has been possible only to supply streets around the cooking centre. As soon as the mobile canteens go out the meals are bought up, for the simple reason that they are extra to what the coupons allow. Unless we are prepared to provide a system of wholesale cooking for the adult population, as well as for school children, there will be dissatisfaction, no matter how perfect the scheme may be. It is not so easy a matter as the hon. Gentleman would have us believe. I read a speech made by the hon. Member not long ago at a meeting of some Scottish Liberals. It indicated that instead of his going in the direction he now proposes, of building up a complete Socialistic system, he wanted to get back to the old idea of Liberalism.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: This is a Liberal Measure. It is based on Liberal conceptions.

Mr. Watson: Is it?

Mr. Stewart: Certainly. It was introduced by Liberals.

Mr. Watson: We have not had much support from the Liberal party for a system of that kind.

The Deputy-Chairman: This Amendment deals with the responsibility of local authorities for providing payment for meals. The hon. Member is going rather wide.

Mr. Watson: I agree that I was rather over-stepping the limits in discussing what the Liberal party stands for, even on an Amendment of this kind. But the Labour party has nothing to be ashamed of in regard to the provision of meals for schoolchildren. The circumstances are such that some test must be applied, either on the


basis of the income of the parents or on that of recommendation by teachers, headmasters, or medical officers, so long as we cannot go in for wholesale feeding of schoolchildren. The hon. Gentleman did not indicate how the test was to be applied. If tests were applied, a number of people now getting cheap milk would no longer receive it. Even in connection with that scheme, there is considerable dissatisfaction. Some people cannot receive cheap milk because they have not children of the prescribed ages. The hon. Gentleman referred to free books. He asked why, if we can have free books, we cannot have free meals? He comes from the same county as I do, and I can assure him that we did not get much support from East Fife for the proposal to supply free books. I do not think he represents a very large body of opinion in East Fife when he advocates free meals.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Yes, I do.

Mr. Watson: In East Fife, there is a very thrifty, hard-working population. The fishermen and agricultural workers there are independent people, who wanted to feed their own children. I would like to see everybody in a position to feed his own children, giving them all the food that they require. But I repeat that I am not sure that in demanding this great extension of the system of free meals in schools, the hon. Member represents the considered opinion of either the agricultural workers or the fishermen in the East of Fife. At any rate, those of us in the West part of Fife, the industrial part, have been pioneers so far as all these things are concerned. The provision of free books had to be forced on the East of Fife, and their attitude to the provision of free meals will be, I believe, the same. The hon. Member should not imagine that he is coming forward as a new leader. He is simply saying to-day what the Labour party has been saying for years. I also resent the remarks that were made by the hon. Member for Gateshead and the taunts that he threw across at these benches, because we have to accept a Measure of this kind as the best we can get in the prevailing circumstances.

Dr. Russell Thomas: I want, first of all, to tell my Scottish friends that I apologise for speaking on this Amendment, but I have spent some of

my political life in Scotland, and I have some knowlege of their conditions, and I am also deeply interested in the subject of nourishment generally. My memories of Scotland include a very distant part of the Highlands, one of the most derelict areas in the country; in fact the most derelict in the whole of Great Britain—more derelict than Jarrow or South' Wales. Children had to go very long distances to school along bad roads in the Highlands, and the question of food caused particular difficulties. I heard many pitiable stories from the Sheriff-Substitute at that time of the parlous condition of their parents, the poor crofters. I just mention that in passing.
The subject of the nourishment of school children is one of the most important with which we have to deal. I do not think that we have given it sufficient attention in the past. The school children of to-day will be the citizens of this country tomorrow. They will have to hear the Whole burden of industry on their backs. They will have to carry the whole weight of production and will have the post-war troubles thrust upon them. We have got to the stage when people live to greater years, and they are asking for a pension at an earlier stage in their existence. There is a constant demand and clamour in this House for pensions at 60. Who will provide these pensions later on? The children of to-day when they reach the age of 18, and between 18 and 60 they will have to bear the whole of that burden by means of their productive capacity. Therefore it is our duty to see that they are now looked after as far as possible. It is only by nourishing and building up their bodies that they can properly be equipped for the battle that lies ahead of them.

The Deputy-Chairman: I would remind the hon. Member that, while perhaps he is dealing with the subject of the whole Clause, it is not the subject of the Amendment we are discussing. We are discussing the question of giving local authorities power to enforce payment for meals by parents. That is the point of the Amendment.

Dr. Thomas: I was only making the point that the means test was being thrust into this question and that it would be very difficult for these children to obtain the help they ought to receive. I will leave it at that. I regret that the Minister should say that this is only a limited Bill.


I had hoped that could be used for the future, and that, although the education authority might not be able to apply it fully at the present time, nevertheless, they would be able to put the matter into working order.
Now what is a solvent family? That is a very difficult thing to decide. An education official might come along and say, "These people can pay." What really is a solvent family among the workers of this country? I do not know. They might be able to pay their rent or ordinary food bills and so on but they will have little left. Is it too much to ask the public authority to pay the little required for this school meal? My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) made the point that education and nourishment should be separated. I do not believe that children can get the full benefit of education unless they are properly nourished. That is fundamental.

Mr. Lindsay: I did not say that.

Dr. Thomas: I support my hon. Friend in the Amendment he has moved, and I hope later, on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," to develop my arguments which I had hoped to put forward at this juncture, in order to save the time of the Committee.

Lieutenant Butcher: I do not want to trespass beyond the rules of strict Order, but I was extremely disappointed with the remarks of the Secretary of State when he asked, How are you to determine which children are to receive this nourishment? I think that the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones) was right in drawing attention to Sub-section (2), which says that children who are to have the benefit are those in regard to whom it is brought to the notice of the local authority that they are unable to take advantage of the education provided. If we allow Sub-section (3) to be passed, we have two tests. There is the test in Sub-section (2) of the need for food and clothing to enable them to take advantage of the education. The Clause would be improved and be a far greater credit to my right hon. Friend if it were allowed to finish at the end of Sub-section (2). By allowing Sub-section (3) to remain in the Bill we bring in another test—not the test of need, but the test of means. When it is decided under Sub-section (2) that children need feeding, their parents under

Sub-section (3) are to be asked whether they are able to pay or whether they are not feeding the children because they cannot or because they will not.
I was extremely disappointed to hear my right hon. Friend refer in the early part of his speech to the fact that certain local authorities were doing so little in the way of feeding of children that he would not mention their names, and in a later part of his speech he said that they had not got any support from any of the local authorities. After all, they are the same local authorities. Who is to administer the case of need? Let us have a little more practical information. Is it to be done by the representatives of the Assistance Board? Does the receiving of money from the Assistance Board mean that feeding is necessitous? Does it mean alternatively that there is to be another visit from the education officer, who, within half an hour and on the same facts, may reach an entirely different conclusion? Until my right hon. Friend has satisfied us on some of these points, we really must ask for some further explanation to enable us to come to some decision on the matter.

Mr. Mathers: It is proper that we should start the business of the new year in the House of Commons with a Measure of this kind and especially seeing that it is of Scottish origin. We are in effect first-footing the House of Commons. We are taking the first steps to provide children with food. Some people hold that there should be more than food, but food is the essential thing when you are on a first-footing expedition. However much attention one might give to the speeches of those who are supporting this Amendment, I think that we must be compelled to agree with the right hon. Gentleman in the practical line that he has taken. I am sure that even those who are pressing this Amendment so strongly will agree that in this matter we are not limited by the will of the Secretary of State, but by the practical circumstances in which we find ourselves. I think the Committee should pay very strict attention to the eminently sensible speech which came from my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson). We are dealing with an Amendment that seeks to take out Sub-section (3) of this Clause. The speeches we have listened to were not limited to that, but they covered a much wider field, and it is


these speeches that have been replied to from this side of the Committee, and to which there has been a reply by the Minister. If the supporters of this Amendment had been absolutely sincere in the speeches they made to the Committee, they would not have been limiting their Amendment to Sub-section (3) of this Clause. They would have been moving very drastic Amendments to Subsections (1) and (2) as well. What they are contending for would require these Amendments to be made, and I am satisfield that much of what we have heard from the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Stewart) and the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Magnay) to-day was more in the nature of party propaganda than anything in the way of striving for the successful outcome of an effort to amend this Bill. I am sorry the Debate should have descended to these levels to-day. I am sure other Members of the Committee feel that as well as myself.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones) asked—and it was one of his main points—how the amount provided for in this Sub-section was to be recovered from the parents of the children who were provided with these facilities. I think that point to-day is worthy of a considered reply from the Government, and perhaps we may have it before we part with this Amendment, or on the Motion that the Clause should stand part of the Bill. As I see it, the so-called means test that will be applied here—and it is only a means test looked at in a limited light—is not a means test being applied by the Secretary of State in this Bill. The recovery of whole or part of the cost of the meals is a question that is left to the local authority.

Mr. Magnay: It is still a means test, whoever applies it. Is the hon. Gentleman's argument—

The Chairman (Sir Dennis Herbert): Order.

Mr. Mathers: The recovery of whole or part of the amount incurred for the provision of meals for children is a matter to be dealt with by local authorities at their discretion. They are in intimate contact with the people who are being served and have the best knowledge of how to apply any recovery method in respect of these charges, and I think we can safely leave it to them to deal with this particular

problem. Even so, I believe that the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen is one that is worthy of an answer by Government. Taking everything into consideration, as we stand at the present time we are entitled to say to those who put forward this Amendment that in happier circumstances we would have been willing to go along with them towards making the progress which they and we desire but at the moment we accept and limit ourselves to the length to which this Bill enables us to go, considering that in so doing we are making a substantial step forward and one which will be whole-heartedly welcomed in Scotland.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Whatever my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) says, the fact remains that this is a means test upon young children who line up for their daily meal at school. Nothing at all can alter that clear, outstanding and rather unfortunate fact. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State justifies that on the ground of expediency, firstly, because there is not sufficient equipment to provide any more meals and, secondly, supposing that there was, it would be rather difficult to make a choice of children. That is a very plausible argument, but it is an attempted get-out for my right hon. Friend and his friends. It is an obvious get-out, but it will not stand examination. Let us examine it. I could take my right hon. Friend to any country school in the constituency of East Fife to-day to which children have to walk one, two or three miles, or bus even further, and who are now getting a plate of soup at school. Equipment is there, and soup is made out of gifts offered by farmers. Is my right hon. Friend prepared to deny that if we gave schools further rationed foods now, there is no equipment available for a full decent meal to-morrow? Of course, he cannot deny that. The fact is that equipment is there in the great bulk of agricultural schools in the country, and these schools need these meals more than others.

Mr. Lindsay: Does the hon. Gentleman say that equipment now exists in the great majority of Scottish country schools?

Mr. Stewart: I said, and I will repeat it, that I could take my right hon. Friend to any country school in East Fife—and I would also take the hon. Member, whose


reactionary views rather surprised me to-day—and show him plates of soup being given to children. If he would give the headmasters of these schools rationed foods, there is sufficient equipment to give the children not only soup but something in addition. I am not impressed with his argument, especially when, if a body of soldiers is suddenly moved to an area, it is possible to provide all the meals necessary. The Minister has drawn a red herring across the trail. I recognise, of course, that you cannot provide 100 per cent. meals for all the children at once. Nobody said so, but what I am trying to do is to establish a principle. How are you to select? If local authorities act under Sub-section (2) of Clause they may find all the children they need to employ the food facilities that are available. No question of the difficulty of selection will arise. Even if a few places were left over, is it not abundantly plain how it can be done? Women in war factories and on farms are working in conditions which justify their children having a meal at the middle of the day. I am not in the least impressed—and neither, I believe, will the country be—by arguments about difficulties of selection. The fact is that my right hon. Friend has let the cat out of the bag. Earlier in my remarks, I asked him of whom he was afraid. He has told us. He is afraid of the county councils. He has said that.

Mr. Johnston: I did not say that. I said no such thing.

Mr. Mathers: The cat was a red herring a little while ago.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: There are cats and red herrings here. My right hon. Friend explained that a large number of county councils were passing resolutions.

Mr. Johnston: I did not say a large number.

Mr. Stewart: He said that some county councils—a sufficient number to impress him—were passing resolutions saying that, whatever the House decided, they in their mighty attitudes and lordly positions would refuse to work it. I am very surprised that my right hon. Friend should have been impressed by this. The county councils that were invited at the beginning of the war to undertake great tasks in air-raid precautions might have said the same thing. But they are doing those jobs. So could they do this job, if it

were the desire of the House. It is a great principle that we are trying to establish. It is an extension of the Act passed in the olden days by colleagues of ours, of which we are proud; it is an extension in line with the political philosophy which I and my hon. Friends represent. It is a principle which we regard as essential, and on which we are now prepared to divide the Committee.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): I should like to reply to one or two questions which I think it is better should be answered and to refer to one or two statements that have been made, particularly in connection with a county of which I have some knowledge. It has been suggested that there is equipment for all the schools in the county. I happen to know the County of Fife. There are one or two isolated cases where there is equipment, and in these cases the equipment, and even the food, has been provided as a result of the generosity of the farmers round about, and this despite the fact that the Fife County Council at the present time have power to feed the children. They have never exercised that power. For the purpose of inducing them to provide food for the children, particularly in the country districts, we have increased the grant. They had power to do it before, but they did not do it, with the result that the County of Fife comes within the category of those education authorities which provide food for less than, 3 per cent. of the children.

An Hon. Member: It is a backward area.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I am trying to bring it forward. Why does the Under-Secretary of State object?

Mr. Westwood: So are we trying to bring it forward, but we are trying to do it in a reasonable way in which we can accomplish the task we have set ourselves, and not set ourselves an impossible task. We have to carry the education authorities with us, and we can only carry with us authorities like the Fife County Council, and others, if we give them power to recover the cost where they are justified in recovering it. The Clause we are discussing deals not only with necessitous children, but with children who ought to be provided with food in order to avoid their being undernourished. In those cases, surely if we


cannot provide food for every child attending school, we must take the line that where the parents can afford to pay, they ought to pay. There has not been a single resolution from any authority in Scotland asking us to do otherwise. The parents have been paying and are paying to a very large extent in Ayrshire, and there is no differentiation between the necessitous child and the child who is not necessitous. The same thing applies in Aberdeen, where they are carrying out a magnificent piece of work and providing an excellent meal at 3d., and actually making a profit. Why? Because the only charge that arises is for the food; there is no charge for the equipment, the cooking, the arrangement of the school, and so on.
There is no means test whatever in the Bill. It is left to the local authorities to decide whether the parents can pay. If in the opinion of the authorities the parents can pay, they must recover the cost from the parents. That is right until the time comes when we can make the feeding of school children part of our educational system and not merely part of our wartime effort. I hope the time will come when we can do that. In the meantime, we hope to get the education authorities in Scotland, under this Measure, to feed 25 per cent. or 30 per cent. of the children. One authority which I visited recently has already made arrangements to feed not less than 40 per cent. They are responding well to the encouragement given to them by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
I have been asked to explain what is the method of recovery. It is exactly the same as that which exists at the present time. For instance, in Aberdeen, on Monday morning the child takes the money for five meals at 3d. each, the money is paid, and the child has meals for the five days. In the case of the necessitous child, once the authority have determined that the parents are unable to pay, there is no further trouble, but there may be necessitous children, or children who are under-nourished, in whose cases the parents are morally responsible for paying, where they have been using their means in ways that no one could justify. Is there any justification in such cases for allowing the parents to get off paying? Is there any justification for their not appearing before the education authority?

The authority, having determined that the parents must pay, recover the money by visits of their school attendance officer, and, if necessary, take the parents to the court under the Small Debts Recovery Act for the purpose of recovering the money. Why should this not be done?

Mr. Garro Jones: Here we come to the crucial point. Suppose that the authority go to the court and say that in their opinion the parents are in a position to pay the money. I have attended the courts, as no doubt the hon. Gentleman has, and I can assure him that justice is not always done and does not always even appear to be done. Suppose that the parents say, "We cannot afford to pay this amount." Is the ipse dixit of the school attendance officer to carry the verdict in face of all the evidence which the parents provide?

Mr. Westwood: I have never said that it is to be the ipse dixit of the school attendance officer. It will be the duty of the education authority. They are democratically elected and they are entitled, under the powers we have given them, to determine whether the parents can or cannot pay, but once they have made their determination, it is their officers who have to carry out the recovery. I can speak with a little authority in this connection, for I have had 25 years of association with educational administration in Scotland. I do not know of a single case of that sort; I do not know of a single case where the education authorities have been unfair in dealing with these cases. In my experience the reverse has always been the case. When I have found parents spending money in ways in which they ought not to have spent it, at the expense of the wellbeing of their children, and when I have wanted to prosecute, there have been members of the authority who belonged to another political party who have not had the guts to stand up and say that the parents should be compelled to do what was right. The recovery will be made by using the machinery which exists at the present time. There have been no complaints and no instances of injustice. We shall continue to use that machinery for the purpose of collecting the money where the authority determine that the parents ought to pay for the meals. I hope that with that explanation the Committee will reject the Amendment.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out to the word 'be,' in line 22, stand part of the Clause."

Division No. 5.]
AYES.



Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Hammersley, S. S.
Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.
Pym, L. R.


Adamson, Jennie L. (Dartford)
Harvey, T. E.
Quibell, D. J. K.


Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.
Hewlett, T. H.
Radford, E. A.


Ammon, C. G.
Hollins, J. H. (Silvertown)
Rathbone, Beatrice F. (Bodmin)


Assheton, R.
Hopkinson, A.
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham (St. M.)


Barnes, A. J.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.
Hulbert, Squadron-Leader N. J.
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)
Hurd, Sir P. A.
Ridley, G.


Blair, Sir R.
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. G. I. C. (E'burgh)
Riley, B.


Bossom, A. C.
Jagger, J.
Ritson, J.


Boulton, W. W.
Jewson, P. W.
Robertson, D. (Streatham)


Bower, N. A. H. (Harrow)
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T. (Stl'g &amp; C'km'n)
Russell, Sir A. (Tynemouth)


Brabner, R. A.
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k Newington)
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Brooke, H.
Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Savory, Professor D. L.


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)
Scott, Donald (Wansbeek)


Cadogan, Major Sir E.
Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.
Selley, H. R.


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Keeling, E. H.
Shute, Col. Sir J. J.


Carver, Colonel W. H.
Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U's)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W. D.


Cary, R. A.
Key, C. W.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Challen, C.
King-Hall, Commander W. S. R.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.


Charleton, H. C.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Lathan, G.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Craven-Ellis, W.
Leach, W.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Critchley, A.
Leslie, J. R.
Sutcliffe, H.


Crowder, J. F. E.
Levy, T.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Culverwell, C. T.
Liddall, W. S.
Thorne, W.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Lindsay, K. M.
Tinker, J. J.


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Lipson, D. L.
Tomlinson, G.


Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)
Little, Sir E. Graham- (London Univ.)
Tufnell, Lieut.-Comdr. R. L.


Davison, Sir W. H.
Loftus, P. C.
Wakefield, W. W.


Donner, Squadron Leader P. W.
Lucas, Major Sir J. M.
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)


Douglas, F. C. R.
Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Drewe, C.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Watkins, F. C.


Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)
McEntee, V. La T.
Watson, W. McL.


Ede, J. C.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. Sir E.
Watt, F. C. (Edinburgh Cen.)


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Mander, G. le M.
Watt, Lt.-Cot. G. S. H. (Richmond)


Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Mathers, G.
Webbe, Sir W. Harold


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Westwood, J.


Elliston, Captain G. S.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P.
White, Sir Dymoke (Fareham)


Emery, J. F.
Milner, Major J.
White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)


Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.
Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)


Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Foot, D. M.
Mort, D. L.
Willink, H. U.


Fox, Sir G. W. G.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.
Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir J.


Fremantle, Sir F. E.
Paling, W.
Woodburn, A.


Fyfe, Major D. P. M.
Parker, J.
Wragg, H.


George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'broke)
Peake, O.
Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.


Gibson, Sir C. G.
Peto, Major B. A. J.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Gledhill, G.
Peters, Dr. S. J.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.



Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Plugge, Capt. L. F.
Mr. Munro and Mr. Grimston.




NOES


Bellenger, F. J.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Butcher, Lieut. H. W.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Sorensen, R. W.


Cluse, W. S.
Magnay, T.
Stokes, R. R.


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Universities)
Walkden, E. (Doncaster)


Dobbie, W.
Naylor, T. E.



Garro Jones, G. M.
Poole, Captain C. C.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Granville, E. L.
Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey, W.)
Mr. Henderson Stewart and




Dr. Russell Thomas.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Dr. Russell Thomas: I referred a short while ago to the nourishment of school children in general. In spite of the fact that the Bill does not go as far as I hoped

The Committee divided: Ayes, 163; Noes, 18.

it would go, I am glad that a Bill of this nature has been brought forward. Children will have to bear an enormous burden in future. They will have to carry the weighty problems which will be on their backs at the end of the war, and they will need to be in the finest condi-


tion of health in order to bear that burden. It is well that we should see to it that they are properly nourished, and I believe the Bill goes some way in that direction. Children are the most important part of our community. We are a declining population. Most Western countries are dropping in their population, and that is an important fact.

The Chairman: I am afraid I must remind the hon. Member that this is not the Second Reading of the Bill.

Dr. Thomas: The object of the Bill is to relieve necessitous children, and children are one of the greatest causes of poverty. Under-nourishment is far more frequent than we think, and it is very difficult to assess. I believe that many children in the past have been undernourished and I think the Clause will go a long way to help in that direction. It is not always easy to tell what is an under-nourished child. Doctors disagree.

The Chairman: The hon. Member does not seem to have understood my interruption. Speeches on the principle of a Bill are properly made on the Second Reading but are not permissible on a single Clause in Committee. I sympathise with the hon. Member's difficulty, because it is difficult to make the speech that he wants to make on this Clause.

Lieutenant Butcher: I think the Committee will be rather disappointed with the length to which the Bill goes as the result of the discussion on the earlier Amendment. It had the opportunity of being a very good Bill, and, had my right hon. Friend seen his way to accept the Amendment moved from these Benches, its benefits would have been greater still. We have three classes of children who may be fed by a local authority, first those whose parents desire that they shall be fed and desire to pay for their food—there is no difficulty there—then children, as the Under-Secretary said, will line up at the headmaster's desk with 1s. 3d. in their hands, covering five days' meals—

Mr. Westwood: I never said anything of the kind.

Lieutenant Butcher: I am sorry if I misinterpreted the hon. Gentleman, but I thought he suggested that it was a common thing for children to bring their

money to school for certain disbursements and that this course would be followed under the Bill.

The Chairman: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has perhaps escaped Scylla in order to run into Charybdis. He is now apparently continuing the Debate on an Amendment which has been disposed of.

Lieutenant Butcher: I am grateful to you, Sir Dennis, and I hope to navigate rapidly away from the danger. We then have under the Clause a second class of children, who, the local authorities determine, are not able to take advantage of the education by reason of their necessitous condition, the parents also being unable to provide for them. The third and most unhappy category is that of children whose parents neglect them, who are able to pay but do not make the contribution that they should make. When we have reached that stage we have reached a very unfortunate position indeed. I do not think, if hon. Members were in different parts of the Committee, they would regard this with equanimity or allow it to go without making some protest. Nevertheless, despite silence and apparently acquiescence in it, I feel that there is great good in the Clause and I hope the Committee will agree to it.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: I think the Committee is entitled to what one might describe as some straight talking on this Clause. It is my opinion that the opposition to it has not been put forward with a view in any way to assisting the children. It is merely another example of that type of political game which the Prime Minister appealed to us to have done with at least during the years of the war.

Lieutenant Butcher: It will be within the hon. Member's recollection that I am the only person who has spoken on the Clause and that I approved of it. No opposition, therefore, has manifested itself.

Mr. Davidson: The hon. and gallant Gentleman will also recollect that I referred to the opposition to the Clause. I wish to say on behalf of my colleagues from Glasgow that their absence is due to the lateness of the train. I understand that it has not arrived yet. I say that so that those who have taken part in the discussion shall understand the position.


Some of us were more fortunate and, travelling earlier, managed to be here in time. I hope that the hon. Member who made that criticism will remember that point.
This Clause says that the children of Scotland, whether they be of well-off parents or of poor parents, shall receive the same consideration and treatment; they shall be dealt with by the democratically elected education committees. It is not a question, as in the old days under Clauses that were supported by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Stewart), of saying that the education committee must impose a means test. We say that it shall be within the discretion of the education committee to decide. That is to say, it is left to the men and women who are elected in the local areas. Does the hon. Member for East Fife want to take upon his shoulders the local government of Scotland? After considering many of his speeches in the House I think it would be a most backward step for Scotland to take. We have in Scotland committees elected by the people, and they will operate this Clause. Now this bold Member comes forward and wants to take away from the elected representatives in their own areas, who have been given a job of looking after the children, the right to decide whether a child shall receive certain food that is necessary. We have had local authorities approach the House of Commons in deputations to Ministers asking for the maintenance of their rights as people on the spot to make decisions with regard to the children under their jurisdiction. When the hon. Gentleman goes into Scotland he makes speeches about Scottish self-government and the greater direction by the Scottish people of their own affairs. Then he comes to the House of Commons and wants to take away from the education authorities any right to decide upon the conditions of the children in their own areas.
I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's opposition to past Bills in the House. He has made speeches to many Amendments, but in 99 cases out of 100 he has withdrawn his Amendments after making the type of speech that would suit his constituents. I am surprised that to-day he has allowed his Amendment to go to a Division. I think that he believes he has won some kind of political trickster's victory over the Labour Members who in

the past have fought him against any kind of means test.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Your own Members supported me on the Amendment.

Mr. Davidson: That is just a pity. One or two Members on this side were misled by the obvious trickery and by the attempt to place an onus of responsibility on the shoulders of men and women who can accept no responsibility for a means test but who say that elected local authorities should have their full rights under this Clause.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — WAR ORPHANS BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill is designed to place on the Minister of Pensions the duty of providing for the care of any child suffering from neglect or want of proper care for whom a pension on account of the death of a parent in the present war is being paid by my Department under various instruments providing for compensation for disablement or death of members of the Forces, the Mercantile Marine, the Civil Defence Service, and the civilian population. The Bill covers children in the United Kingdom, but at a later stage I shall ask the leave of the Committee dealing with it to introduce an Amendment so that I can operate it also in the Isle of Man. It may be asked why it should be confined to the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man when, with the evacuation of children across the ocean, there will be some war orphans outside the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man. It is not possible to legislate on behalf of those children, but I can give the assurance to the House that I shall do everything I can to provide for the children living outside the United Kingdom.
A similar duty was imposed upon the Minister of Pensions under Section 9 of the War Pensions (Administrative Provisions)


Act, 1918. That applied to the orphans of the last war, but only as regards the orphans of the men in the Armed Forces of the Crown. At the outbreak of the present war, Section 2 of the Pensions (Navy, Army, Air Force and Mercantile Marine) Act, 1939, was passed to revive this duty for children of the same classes where death occurred as the result of service in the war. I found, however, that this was not wide enough as it did not cover orphans of members of the Mercantile Marine or Civil Defence Service or of the civilian population killed as a result of enemy action. This Bill will cover the children of all classes of persons with whom I am concerned as Minister of Pensions. I think the House will agree—at least, I hope they will—that this is-a wise and proper step to take on behalf of the orphans of the present war; that I should not merely confine my duty to looking after those whose fathers were in the Services but extend it to the wider field covered by the various pension schemes which I administer.
I should like to say a further word or two about my duties. Like my predecessors, I have never regarded my duty towards orphans as fulfilled by the mere payment of pensions. I believe that in the case of orphans, disabled men or any others drawing pensions, money compensation is not enough, and that a Government Department should pay some consideration to its other duties. I regard it as my duty to see that a general oversight is exercised over all total orphans to ensure that they receive proper care and that their pensions are used for their benefit. Complete supervision by the Ministry of children living with a surviving parent would be, I submit, rather impracticable and possibly unnecessary. We look to the mother—or to the father if it is he who is left alive—to be responsible for the child, and to see that it is properly cared for. But where it is reported to me that a child is lacking proper care, then I intervene on behalf of that child. I am glad to say, however, that such instances are very rare, although the sources from which I draw my information are very wide. In some cases we find on investigation of complaints that there is not so much in a complaint as would appear on the surface, but where there has been definite neglect I say frankly that I do not hesitate to intervene.

Mr. Gordon Macdonald: Will the Minister say what machinery he employs to find out these cases?

Sir W. Womersley: I am coming to the machinery later, because I am not only using old-time machinery but am hoping to improve it. We generally find that where the child is in charge of the surviving parent advice and warnings have the desired effect and bring about an improvement in the treatment of the child. In some cases the state pf affairs which has given rise to complaints has arisen from ignorance, because I am sorry to say there is still a little of that in the world; sometimes from ill health, and there have been cases where one can say it arises from laziness; but I want to make it clear that in my long experience cases of deliberate cruelty or wanton disregard of the child's interests are very few indeed, and that ought to be made known throughout the length and breadth of the land. But where it does appear to me that the neglect has been wilful, more serious than can be dealt with by the milder methods to which I have referred, other steps are taken. When I come to deal with these other cases I always seek the help and advice of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in England and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Scotland, and I want to pay a tribute to those two societies, because their help has been invaluable and it has always been readily offered. It is necessary sometimes to apply in the courts for an order committing a child to my care. I am glad to say that I get the support of those societies when I have to make such an application. We do not make such an application unless it is absolutely necessary.
From what I have already said it will be seen, I think, that it is absolutely necessary that I should have a statutory mandate from this House under which I can secure proper care for any war-pensioned orphan who may be suffering from neglect. I will tell the House the system we have adopted and I am glad to say that in formulating my schemes and in carrying them out I have had very valuable assistance from a lady Member of this House, the hon. Member for Dartford (Mrs. Adamson), a woman who has brought up a family herself and who has


full understanding of family life and the position of these children. In addition, I have appointed specially selected women officers at each of my chief regional offices. It is their duty to keep in touch with every pensioned child in the area who has lost both parents and to ensure that the child is being properly treated. They also make immediate inquiries into any allegation of neglect which is brought to their notice, even though the child may be in the care of its own mother. If they find there is no substance in the complaint they report back to my Department and, of course, no action is taken. If they find there has been definite neglect then the steps I have already described can be taken and are taken. I want to say "Thank you" to my colleagues the Minister of Health, the President of the Board of Education and the Secretary of State for Scotland for the help which their Departments have given me in this matter. Their Departments and the children's officers serving under my Department are working together very well indeed, and there is no question of friction or difficulty.
Perhaps the House would be interested to hear a few figures concerning the orphans of the present war. The present number of total orphans on my books is just over 1,500, two-thirds of whom are the children of Civil Defence personnel or civilians. One can well understand why we may have more total orphans from the civilian population than from the Services. There is the case of the child who has been evacuated to a safe area in the country. Its parents have remained in London or in some other big industrial centre and both of them have been killed, perhaps, in the same night, leaving the child without parents. The method we have adopted so far is this: Where there is a relative or a close friend of the family willing to take the child, we say that that is the best home into which to put it—subject, of course, to supervision by my women visitors and to making sure that the child is in happy surroundings. Or, if one of these evacuated children who has become a total orphan is already in a suitable home—as one person describes it "Happily placed in their billets"—secured by the local authority, we leave it there for the time being. We think it better to keep the child in a safe area under the care of the people already looking after it.
The question of foster-parents is an important one, because there we are dealing not merely with the present but with the future of the child. It has been the practice of the Ministry when taking a neglected child into its care to place it in a private home with foster-parents, who, we hope and trust, will help it to forget its past unhappiness. In this connection I should like to pay a tribute to the hundreds of kindly folk who have opened their homes to orphans of the war. A lot of people have written to me asking me to allow them to adopt one of these orphans, and many more have written to my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford. They are anxious to take the orphan, not for the sake of the pension money, but because they would like to take the child and bring it up as they would one of their own. I want to thank them for their offers. Some have complained that their offers have not been accepted, but we have actually received more offers than we have available children at the present time. The system of placing them with near relatives or with immediate friends is the best method, and means that we have not so many children available to take advantage of those offers to provide homes for them in other directions. So far, I have been able to accept only one or two of those offers, but it helps me considerably to know that there are so many people to whom I can turn for help. I thank them, and say that they should not feel upset because they are not getting their desire satisfied at the moment. There may be a time when we shall be able to do something to fulfil their wishes.
Great care is taken in the selection of foster homes and in the subsequent supervision of the children. The success of the boarding-out system is shown by the high proportion of cases of children who suffered from early neglect in the last war but were taken away and put in other homes, and who have become healthy and useful citizens. In numerous cases these children have formed lasting ties of affection with their foster-parents. I pay tribute to the officers of my Department who dealt with those cases. A large number of the orphans of the last war have grown up in these foster homes, been educated just as well as the foster-parents would have educated their own children and have qualified for learned professions. Many are serving in His Majesty's Forces. I do not know a single case where such


orphans have not been a credit to the parents who brought them up. This is a source of satisfaction to the people in my Department who played a little part in giving such children a fair chance in life.
I am sure the House would not expect a long speech from me in support of the Bill, which, I feel certain, commends itself to all. It has always been my aim to minimise the adverse effect upon these children of their tragic loss and to secure for them the care which they would have had if their parents had survived. The provisions of the Bill will materially assist me in that effort.

Mr. Ammon: I am sure the House would like to join me in congratulating the right hon. Gentleman upon bringing in the Bill. I am sure the House will congratulate him also upon having had the practical assistance of the hon. Member for Dartford (Mrs. Adamson). I gather that the Bill extends the provisions of the Pensions Administration Act to take in persons concerned in Civil Defence, such as in the Fire Service, and who may be injured in the course of their duties. I gather also that the Minister takes power to himself to act in loco parentis to children who are being neglected or ill-treated. He instanced that he uses the valuable machinery of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and similar societies which operate in Scotland.
One wonders how far this power extends into the lives of the children. Some of us who have experience upon local authorities are aware that when children attain school-leaving age a parent, who has had no concern with, and who may even have neglected, a child suddenly finds there is now value in the child being at an age to earn money, and such parents step in and upset what has been done by the local authority. Has the Minister any power in that matter? Perhaps he will set our minds at rest on the point. These are points of detail on which the Minister may be able to give us some assurance. I thank him sincerely, and congratulate him for having brought in a piece of legislation which will be of great benefit to the rising generation.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.—[Mr. Munro.]

Orders of the Day — WAR ORPHANS [MONEY].

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend section nine of the War Pensions (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1918, and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise Payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister of Pensions by reason of any addition made by the said Act of the present Session to the classes of children for the care of whom it is his duty to make provision or of any extension made thereby of the period for which his duty is to continue in the case of any child."—(King's recommendation signified.)—[Sir W. Womersley.]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

Orders of the Day — INDIA (FEDERAL COURT JUDGES) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The Measure before the House deals with a purely technical point which appears to have been omitted or overlooked when the provisions of the Government of India Act, dealing with the appointment of the Federal Court of India, passed this House. Under Section 214 of that Act not less than three judges of the Federal Court must sit to decide a case. Section 202 of that Act also provides for the appointment of a temporary supernumerary judge in the case of the inability of one of the permanent judges to fulfil the duties of his office. The legal interpretation of this, I am informed, is that the inability is general, in other words, that for one reason or another the judge in question is incapable of attending to the duties of his office generally. It does not include provision for a case where it may be undesirable that a judge should sit in the court owing to the fact that he may possibly have some interest, direct or indirect, in the verdict, or may on a previous occasion, whether


as judge in another court or as counsel, have taken a particular view of the case. Now precisely that circumstance has recently arisen. The latest-appointed member of the Federal Court is himself cited as a party in a case before the Revenue Court of the Punjab. The decision in that case in its turn depends upon the results of an appeal to the Federal Court from the High Court of the Province of the Punjab declaring that a certain Measure passed previously in the Punjab was unconstitutional. The learned judge felt, and indeed justice required, that in the circumstances it was preferable that he should not sit on this appeal. It then emerged that the necessary provision of a supernumerary judge could not be made without an amendment of the India Act. This Bill, which had already been dealt with in another place, provides the necessary amendment. The House will see that Clause 1 (3) lays down:
(3) If the Governor-General in his discretion is satisfied, after considering a report from the Chief Justice of India—

(a)that in view of some personal interest which any judge of the Federal Court has in the decision of any particular case, or of some part which any judge of the Federal Court has already taken, as judge or counsel or otherwise, in or in relation to any particular case (whether or not while it was before the Federal Court), that judge ought not to take part in the hearing and determination thereof, and
(b)that without that judge there are not sufficient judges of the Federal Court available to sit for that purpose,

the Governor-General may in his discretion appoint a judge of a High Court who is duly qualified for appointment as judge of the Federal Court …

Mr. Ammon: There is evidently a difference in regard to these matters between India and this country, where I understand that when any judge is unable to sit on a given case another judge can take up his duties. I understand that the reason for this Bill is that that does not apply in India. This Bill is an amendment to the Act. Does it make provision only for this particular case, or does it make provision for any future contingencies?

Mr. Amery: It is an amendment to the Act covering a particular class of contingency, though it arose on a specific instance to which the attention of the Chief Justice and of the Governor-General has been drawn.

Mr. Ammon: If a similar case should again arise, provision is made to meet it without coming to this House?

Mr. Amery: indicated assent.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.—[Mr. Munro.]

Orders of the Day — INDIA (FEDERAL COURT JUDGES) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

Resolved
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to extend the power of the Governor-General of India to make acting appointments of judges of the Federal Court, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of revenues of India of such sums as may become payable therefrom by reason of any of the provisions of that Act."—(King's Recommendation signified.)—[Mr. Amery.]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

Orders of the Day — PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill is a short Measure to amend the Patents and Designs Acts, 1907 to 1939. I submit it to the House as being a Measure as simple in its form as it is possible to produce in any legislation dealing with so complicated a subject. It amends the Acts in three specific directions, each one of them necessitated by war conditions. Clause 1 deals with the extension of the term of patents. A patent is normally granted for 16 years. The courts have power in certain cases to give an extension beyond that period on certain conditions. One of those conditions, which is set out in Sub-section (6) of Section 18 of the Patents and Designs Act is that the patentee has suffered loss or damage by reason of a war in which this country is engaged. Under the existing law an application for such an extension


must be made before the patent has expired, but it may well be that the patentee has been prevented by military service or by some other cause connected with the war which is quite beyond his control from applying for an extension within the proper time. In this Clause, the courts have power to grant the extension on an application which would otherwise have been out of date.
Again, under the existing law it is possible for only one extension to be granted by the courts. We now propose to allow the courts to give a further extension in order to meet cases where, owing to war conditions, the patentee has not been able to reap the benefits he had a right to expect under his extension. At present the courts may not grant an extension for more than five, or in exceptional circumstances, 10 years, and as I have said, they may grant only one such extension. This Clause enables the courts to grant an extension up to 10 years for war losses alone.
While Clause 1 has given fresh rights to the patentee, Clause 2 gives fresh rights to the Government. It deals with the use of patents and designs by Government Departments. Under Section 29 and Section 58A of the principal Act, the Government may use a patent or design on agreed terms. Failing agreement, the court may decide the terms on which the patent is to be used. But the Act gives Government Departments the power to sell any patented article only when that article is no longer of service to the State. During the war, some Government Departments, such as the Ministry of Food, have imported, and may in future wish to import, articles which are patented in this country, and in many cases to resell them. At present, these powers are provided by Regulation 4 of the Defence (Patents, Trade Marks, etc.) Regulations, but that Regulation is not retrospective in its effects. Sub-section (3) of Clause 2 makes the provision operative as from 3rd September, 1939, the date of the beginning of the war. The House will notice that in this Clause we have taken a fairly long view, because we provide for possibilities arising not only out of this war but out of any subsequent wars in which we may happen to be engaged.
Clause 3 is designed, like Clause 1, to safeguard the interests of the patentee. It

deals with inventions which, in the interests of national defence, have to be kept secret. Under war conditions, it becomes necessary that information about secret inventions should be imparted to an Ally. It is desirable that such inventions should be accorded protection in the country to which the communication is imparted, similar to the protection which is accorded in the country from which the communication was received. Also, it is desirable that the invention should be given a priority of date, depending upon the date on which a pate it was applied for in the country from which the communication was received. But, in order to attain this object, under the present law, the patent or registration must be applied for within 12 months or six months respectively after the original application. In the case of these secret inventions, the period during which such application can properly be made may have already expired. This Clause, by adding a new Section 91B of the main Act, empowers the Board of Trade to make rules to extend that period where reciprocity is given by the other country concerned.
The House will see that we are proceeding by rules which can be made by the Board of Trade. The advantage of such procedure is that it enables the Department to make, or, if necessary, to vary, these rules on a reciprocal basis. Paragraphs (a) to (f) set out the sort of rules, but the list is by no means exclusive. The new Section 91C deals with cases in which, under international arrangements, information about inventions or designs has been supplied; and it enables the Board of Trade, again on the basis of reciprocity, to make the necessary rules to secure that such communications made to this country shall not prejudice the inventor abroad from whom the particular information was received. Section 91D provides that new rules shall be advertised and laid before Parliament, and such rules may, as in the case of the previous Clause, be made retrospective in their operation so that they will apply to patents or designs already transmitted by foreign countries to us, or by patentees here to foreign countries. The House will agree that these rather simple provisions are necessary in the circumstances of the war and I hope that they will allow the Bill to be read a Second time.

Mr. Tinker: On the question of patents and designs as dealt with by this Bill, one or two things arise in my mind and, no doubt, in the minds of other hon. Members as well. During the war period we receive scores of letters from well-meaning constituents who claim to have found some particular invention which they think would improve the war effort. It may be something to do with the protection of ships, some kind of new gun, or something to stop an aeroplane from falling. Particulars of all these things are sent to us and we in turn send them to the various Departments, but one does not seem to get any further. We want to be able to satisfy our ardent upporters. They wish well to the war and we do not want to disappoint them, but we always seem to get up against a blank wall. I wonder whether there is anything to deal with this sort of thing in the provisions of this Bill. Is my hon. and gallant Friend going to help these people to get their patents filed? I do not know whether this is the right time or place to raise this matter but one likes to obtain as much information as possible so that he can give his constituents a proper account of the position.

Captain Waterhouse: With the permission of the House, I wish to say that I sympathise with my hon. Friend and that I myself have many constituents who have been transmitting these happy thoughts to me, but I am afraid that this particular Bill will not help them at all. The Bill deals entirely with inventions and designs, applications for which have already been made, and inventions and designs which have already been patented or registered. I am afraid that the only hope of my hon. Friend is that his perseverance with Government Departments will result in someone having a brain-wave sufficiently bright to get a satisfactory answer from them.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting day.—[Mr. Munro.]

Orders of the Day — PATENTS AND DESIGNS [MONEY].

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the chair.]

Resolved,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the Patents and

Designs Acts, 1907 to 1939, as respects the right of the Crown to use inventions and designs and as respects other matters it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable out of such moneys which is attributable to any provisions of the said Act, whether retrospective or not, extending the right of the Crown to use patented inventions and registered designs."—(King's recommendation signified.)—[Captain Water house.]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

Orders of the Day — JUVENILES (EARNINGS).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Munro.]

Mr. Lipson: I desire to raise the question of the earnings of juveniles under 18. Naturally, during the war our chief attention must be concentrated on matters appertaining to the conduct of the war, but I think the House will agree with me when I say that we must not be blind to what is happening on the home front, particularly when some of the action taken there may in itself be prejudicial to certain aspects of the war effort and may have consequences which will be felt long after the war. I therefore make no apology for drawing attention to the earnings of juveniles of 14, 15, 16 and 17.
On 4th December I put a Question to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour asking for information as to the amount of those earnings, and in his reply he referred me to the publication of the result of an investigation which had taken place in July, 1941. The figures resulting from this investigation showed that the earnings of juveniles average 50s. 5d. per week. Now average figures are apt to be deceptive in that they do not tell the whole story and sometimes conceal the particular piece of information that one requires. I suggest that that applies to the statement giving the average earnings of juveniles, for this reason. These juveniles include a certain number of apprentices. Nobody would suggest that the earnings of apprentices are too high. They include a large number of juveniles in the distributive trades, and I do not think there is any evidence to justify the statement that there are excessive earnings by juveniles in these trades. When one takes these two factors into consideration it is obvious that when you are left with


an average earning of 50s. 5d. a week, there must be a certain number—whether a considerable number or not perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell the House—who are earning more than 50s. 5d. a week. The average itself is pretty high in the light of the considerations I have put forward, and I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, will tell us whether his Ministry has information as to the exact number of juveniles who are earning weekly wages in excess of the average of 50s. 5d., how many juveniles come into this category and to what heights these earnings amount.
We know from the Press that there are some juveniles who have, unfortunately, broken the law and have had to be brought before juvenile courts. Some of them are earning £5, £6 and even £ per week. We know that this matter is causing grave concern to all who have to do with youth, leaders of clubs, magistrates, and other well-intentioned persons who have no political interest in the matter, but who take a vital interest in the welfare of the youth of this country and who see in these excessive earnings a danger to these young people. I submit that these excessive earnings are bad for the juveniles themselves, because they create in their minds a wrong sense of values and because the fact that at present a certain number of them have these excessive sums to spend, and to control the spending of, exposes them to dangers and temptations to which young people ought not to be exposed. We know that there are undesirable people who are taking advantage of this fact and leading these young people into very bad social conduct. These things also have an effect on the adult, too. What does an agricultural labourer, whose wages have now been raised to £3 a week, after a great fight, think when he hears that there are juveniles under 17 who are earning anything from to £6 or £7 a week? When one urges people not to spend their money but to lend it to the Government, they draw attention to facts of this kind and suggest that there is a considerable waste of public money, that the money which they are careful to save is not properly expended by the Government in permitting things of this kind to happen.
I would point out that matters of this kind, the excessive earnings of juveniles—

and particularly when the juveniles earning these large sums break the law and come into the courts—make very good copy for the newspapers, and therefore, considerable prominence is given to these cases, and it may be that an importance is attached to them which is not altogether justified. But I suggest that we cannot ignore the psychological influence of certain things. There is no doubt that the psychological effect of these excessive earnings is in many ways injurious to our war effort. It tends to make the adults dissatisfied with their earnings. It also means that the serving man has a glaring contrast between what he receives and what a juvenile receives. Many of these juveniles earn these high sums in unskilled occupations, and when they inform their companions who are training themselves for some trade, and are not immediately earning so much, how much they are able to earn in unskilled occupations, it must be a source of temptation to others to follow their example.

Mr. George Griffiths: Will the hon. Member give us some cases?

Mr. Lipson: My purpose to-day is to draw attention to an evil and to find out from the Minister whether he can give us any information as to the extent of it and what steps he proposes to take to deal with it. If my hon. Friend wishes to have a case, perhaps he will allow me to quote this one. This case was reported in the "Cheltenham Echo" about a fortnight ago:
'I earn about £6. and £7 a week,' a 15 year old boy stated at the Liverpool Juvenile Court to-day.
The Chairman: Are you a gold-digger?
The Boy: No, a labourer.
The Clerk: Have you made any provision for your Income Tax?
The boy replied that he had not.
The Minister of Labour has already recognised, by an action he has taken, that some check must be placed on the excessive earnings of juveniles.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Was this lad on piecework or day-work when he earned the £7 a week?

Mr. Lipson: The answer to that question is that I do not know. It has no relevance to the argument I am raising, as the hon. Member will realise if he allows me to develop my argument. The Minister has recognised that these excessive earnings ought to be checked. He has taken steps,


through the Ministry of Works and Buildings, to impose some control over the earnings of juveniles, so tar as they are engaged under contracts for which the Ministry are responsible. He has laid it down Mat boys of 15 should earn 40 per cent, of a man's wage; boys of 16 should earn 50 per cent.; boys of 17, 75 per cent., and boys of 18 should receive the full 100 per cent. I submit that this does not deal entirely with the problem. I feel it is necessary that some action should be taken to make it impossible for juveniles below 18 having control of this excessive spending power. I suggest for the Government's consideration that the Minister should definitely take power to control, by way of deferred pay, all earnings of juveniles below 18 which are above a certain amount, and, on the analogy of the Income Tax payments, such amounts should be credited to them for after the war. I suggest that something should be done on these lines. Arrangements could be made whereby, in the event of an emergency, and subject to proper safeguards, the money could be made available. I believe it to be undesirable that these boys should have the control of this money now, and, while I see there are objections to putting a ceiling on their earnings, I see no objection to taking control in the form of deferred pay for earnings above a certain amount.

Mr. G. Griffiths: What amount?

Mr. Lipson: That is for the Minister to decide. I do not think that it is my job to go into details of that kind. I ask the Minister to recognise that this is an evil which, if it is not controlled, may become a canker in the body politic. I suggest that it is his duty to find out the extent of the evil and to come forward with a constructive proposal to deal with it. I myself have made one proposal. If the right hon. Gentleman refuses it, I hope he will say why. I hope we shall not be faced with a pure negative but shall be given some alternative way of dealing with the evil. I think it is in the interests of the juveniles, and of the State also, that action should be taken without delay.

Sir Percy Harris: I think the hon. Member has served a useful purpose in raising this issue, about which there has been a great deal of publicity in the Press. My own general feeling is that it is a far larger problem

than the question of wages. It is a problem of the proper supervision of adolescents. The Government have recognised their responsibility in that direction, I am glad to say, by legislation requiring the registration of all young people from 16 10, to 18. It is not merely a war-time problem but is part of a post-war problem. We had the same question in the last war. War is bad for young persons. Their parents are largely away on war service, and the children get out of control. There is a shortage of labour, and, inevitably, employers have to employ young persons instead of adults on many jobs. We all agree that a young person doing a man's job should be paid a man's rate of wages. I do not think that can be gainsaid, but it inevitably arises out of the war. That does not say that the Government have not a great responsibility. The Board of Education particularly ought to be thinking well ahead of the whole question. I hope the Government's policy will not end with registration. I think the right place for a child up to 16 is at school and not in the factory, but that will only be possible after the war. We had only got as far as the principle of the age of 15, and that with exemptions, before the war.
There is no doubt that this is a very real and burning question. There is very considerable discontent in rural areas. Agricultural labourers are guaranteed a minimum wage of £3 but that is a maximum. The agricultural labourer is tied to his job. He cannot leave it and compete in the market with young persons, who are in many cases earning high wages, not because employers want to pay them, but because it is the market rate and no adults are available. I know cases in rural areas where there is a demand for lorries, and young persons of 17 are driving them and earning £7 a week. Their fathers, uncles and brothers are earning only £3. You can understand the discontent that is caused, and obviously in a rural area is a lot for a young person doing a comparatively unskilled job. My view is that the real remedy is for the Government to assume responsibility for the care and well-being of all persons from 14 to 16 and not merely to interfere with their wage-earning power but to provide them with facilities for continuation schools and social centres, and carry out the principle embodied in the Fisher Act of continued education and learning, instead of stop-


ping their education when they leave school at 14.

Sir William Wayland: The danger that I can see is after the war. These boys will then be thrown back on their own financial level. They will be getting probably about one-quarter or one-fifth of what they are getting now. After the war a man will not be satisfied with getting £1 a week where he is now getting £4, £5 or £6. My opinion is that the Government ought to have controlled all wages from the beginning of the war as agricultural wages are controlled. Why are they controlled? The right hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) said it was because the agricultural labourer cannot move from his job, but that is not the case. It is considered that an agricultural labourer is worthy of £3 a week, and as a farmer I agree. There is, however, a scale of wages laid down for agriculture from the lad of 14 upwards. If that had been done for wages throughout the country as soon as the war started, we should have avoided two dangers—these excessive wages for youngsters and inflation. Unless we are careful the inflation will become worse than it is at the present time.
One of the worst features of the war, as we see in the courts and in the country, is the excessively ridiculous wages which lads receive. They should be controlled, and it is in the interest of the country that control should come about as soon as possible. I do not say that part of the excessive wages should be taken as Income Tax or put aside until after the war, but I say that youngsters should not be allowed to earn excessive wages. It is a question of supply and demand. They have only come about in munitions industries. We do not find them in the general run of trade, in the distributive trades or ordinary manufacturing. If you ask an ordinary manufacturer what he pays a lad, he will not tell you £4, £5 or £6 a week; he will say that the lad is probably getting 50 per cent. more than he would have got before the war. If you inquire at a munitions factory, you are told that high wages are paid because it is Government work and that it does not matter what the cost is; it is paid for on a basis which allows the employers to obtain a profit and the workers to be paid excessive wages. I hope that something

will be done by the Government to avoid this double danger, not only during the war, but after the war particularly.

Lieutenant Butcher: My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) has put the House in his debt for raising this question. While no one will dispute the argument that if a lad can earn adult's wages he is entitled to them, I feel that excessive wages paid to young people create most unfavourable comparisons. They are not paid to people, who, in the main, are engaged on work of first-class importance. The people who are engaged on that work are agricultural workers, miners, railway men, Post Office servants and so on. Their wages have been increased, as the recent return circulated by the Ministry of Labour shows, by about 30 per cent. The unsatisfactory feature is that a man who has great skill and responsibility, such as an engine driver, receives wages which compare unsatisfactorily, taking all the circumstances into account, with the wages of a man employee in an unskilled capacity by a public works contractor. An unfortunate comparison is also made between the earnings of these young people and young people who are tied to their existing work by an order of the Ministry of Labour made under the Essential Work Order. The difficulty of reconciling the wages paid to these young people on the one hand a ad to responsible men doing important jobs of real war-time value makes me feel how important it is that this Matter should be put right as early as possible.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Has the hon. and gallant Member forgotten that the largest number of young people employed in any single industry are in the distributive trades, and that the wages for those young people have not risen as high as those he has menationed for some other occupations?

Lieutenant Butcher: That is exactly the case I am making. What is desired is that the wages of the whole community shall keep in step. We have rightly taken advantage of the war to make the wages of the agricultural workers more comparable with those of other skilled workers, but no one can suggest that a man who is tied to the land, even with the advantages of the minimum wage and the advantages that piece work can bring, but


with the disadvantage of not being allowed to change his employment, is in a very satisfactory position as compared with the position of these others, and there is grave uneasiness and discontent over the disparity in the rewards which skill brings to a man and the wages that are paid to these boys. There is also the disparity in spending power to be taken into consideration. These young people are, no doubt, doing a good job—I make no complaint on that score—but even though purchases are restricted by means of rationing and the coupon system, the fact remains that a young person may have £4 or £5 a week to spend on his own personal wants or to accumulate in savings while his elder brothers may be in the Services and have wives who have the responsibility of Maintaining a home and keening themselves and their children on Quite small allowances, allowances which there has been an agitation in this House to increase. I am sure that my hon. Friend who represents the Ministry of Labour is aware that things must be got into their proper proportions. I do not think this is a big problem at the present time. I think that the position has been exaggerated. One case of a lad earning £5 a week at the age of 15 hits the newspapers; the large numbers of boys who are earning wages more appropriate to their age and their work is news for nobody. It is however, that the few exceptional cases should he brought to the attention of the Ministry in good time, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to tell us that steps are to be taken in the matter.

Mr. George Griffiths: I think the hon. and gallant Member for Boston-with-Holland (Lieutenant Butcher) has hit the nail on the head properly. There are one or two of these cases in the country. The Press gets hold of them and then Members of Parliament who are not over-desirous that people should have a rattling good wage bring the matter to this House. I am quite satisfied from the way the question has been raised, from the different angles in the House, that the motive is to keep wages down. [Interruption.] It is not "So much nonsense." You take your medicine.

Sir P. Harris: It is not a case of taking medicine. It is not true. The hon. Member is making charges against those of us who have not been speaking and without any justification.

Mr. Griffiths: There has been plenty of justification now for some six weeks or two months, and I am not going to sit down under it in this House. I am standing up for the man who is producing. The country is asking for production and more production, and these workers go out and give production. In a sense they leave their flesh and blood in the munition factories. Some of them are working 60 or 70 hours a week and some up to 84 hours a week, and because they earn a sum which, shall I say, is a little over and above the average for the country, then Members come here and throw up their hands in holy horror and say "This thing must be stopped."

Lieutenant Butcher: rose—

Mr. Griffiths: I am not disputing the case put by the hon. and gallant Member for Holland-with-Boston. Listen to what the hon. Member for Canterbury (Sir W. Wayland) has just said. I have just taken a note of it. He said, "We are looking to after the war." I want us to finish the war before we consider after the war, and we shall not finish the war if we start pulling the men to pieces who are giving us the production. Some of the lads of 17 years of age are 10 or 12 stone in weight. They can, in a sense, lift a truck. They are put on piece-work; they produce the stuff. The Minister of Labour said he was bothering about production. Is that not what we are all bothering about? Have we not been squealing because we had not sufficient production for our needs in France and in Malaya and because there is not sufficient production all round? Then, when people are producing, Members get up in this House and say that those people must not have the money.
I want to give a personal case. When I was 17 years of age I went to work in the pit, with my father and brother, and I was put upon piece-work. The manager did not say, "Look here, George, you're only 17, and your father is 45; you ought not to take home more money than your father and brother." We produced the goods, and I say that these lads of 17 are producing the goods now. It has been said that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) has done the House and the country a service in raising this matter to-day; I am not sure whether that is so. Most of these lads did not leave school at 11 or 12 years


of age as we did, but went to secondary schools. The elementary school standard is higher to-day than it was when I went to school. They are intelligent, and you had better leave this matter alone.
The hon. Member for Canterbury hit the point when he said, "If you give these people high wages now, how are we to manage them after the war?" If the trade unions made the conditions and price lists by agreement with the employers of labour or the Government, the lads who are producing the goods have a right to the money. You do not give them £ or so a week if they are not producing. The lads who are getting £.4., £5 or £6 a week on a day wage are working all the hours that God sends. They have a certain figure, which may be 10d. or 1s. an hour, and they have to work all the hours they can. No doubt the Minister, who is sitting very quiet there, will be able to prove that the people who are getting the money are working the long hours. The hon. Member for Cheltenham suggested that, if the lads are earning these wages, some of it should be put away for them, over and above the Income Tax, by way of deferred payment. I wonder whether he would like his salary deferred, if he has nothing but his salary coming in? The cost of living is going up.. I believe that the hon. and gallant Member for Holland-with-Boston suggested that these lads have nobody to keep but themselves. I am not quite sure of that. They have to help keep the family, and there is a possibility that their father or older brother may be away, so that they may be tipping up their money instead of spending it.

Lieutenant Butcher: My hon. Friend will agree that surely provision for the support of the family of a serving soldier, when he is away, should not be left to the question of whether the young boy is employed at these right rates, or rather at the rates which the Minister under the Essential Work Order has agreed are reasonable.

Mr. Griffiths: It is not what should be; it is what is. Nobody has pleaded harder than my hon. and gallant Friend that Service payments should be higher than they are. The facts are that the lads working on munitions have to help keep the homes going. It is no use taking an isolated case. I have stated that we want

production. I will not touch upon agricultural wages; I only want to say that the hon. Member for Canterbury was wrong when he said that £3 a week was the maximum. Three pounds is not the maximum.

Sir W. Wayland: Three pounds is the maximum at the present time for agricultural wages.

Mr. Griffiths: Nothing of the kind; £3 is the minimum.

Sir W. Wayland: Yes.

Mr. Griffiths: So far as the employing class is concerned, it is as low as they are allowed to go. It is a minimum wage, and if a man is exceptionally skilled, the farmer can pay him £4 or £5 a week if he likes.

Sir W. Wayland: And lose money over him.

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, I know farmers can lose money; a lot of them die in the workhouse every year.

Sir W. Wayland: May I inform my hon. Friend that no industry has shown a higher percentage of bankruptcies in recent years than agriculture?

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Would the hon. Member say that in regard to dairy farming in the last few years?

Sir W. Wayland: Not to the same extent as arable farming.

Mr. G. Griffiths: I do not say that the farmer should not have a fair return. I agree that he should. There are, however, farmers who are doing well, and farmers who need not keep down to the minimum wage. They could pay higher if they chose. I only wanted to correct the hon. Member for Canterbury and point out that it is not a maximum wage, although I agree with my hon. Friend that it becomes the maximum. They make it the maximum. Nobody knows that better than the miners. We know something about minimum and maximum, but nevertheless it is still the minimum on the Statute Book. I do not wish to prolong the Debate. There are others who desire to speak, but in my own mind I am sure that the people who are continually talking about high wages are not desirous that wages should be high. They desire that they should be as low as they possibly can be. When wages are low production


is low. If there is an opportunity for a man to earn a good wage, he will produce the goods. If a lad is on piece-work and can turn the stuff out and earn his £10 or £12 a week, he is doing the country a good turn and is helping to win the war.

Mr. Lindsay: I want to bring the House back to the original speech of my hon. Friend. I understood that this Debate referred to juvenile delinquency.

Mr. Lipson: No.

Mr. Lindsay: It arose on juvenile de, linquency in connection with high wages.

Mr. G. Griffiths: The Adjournment was moved because of alleged excessive wages.

Mr. Lindsay: Perhaps I may be allowed to make my own speech. The Debate began on the possible connection between high wages and juvenile delinquency. I rise to ask one particular question. My hon. Friend who has just spoken has talked a great deal of the time about hours. In fact, what he said was, "They are working the hours; why should they not get the money?" I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to tackle the problem of hours rather than the problem of money, because I believe that if the problem of hours was tackled, the problem of money would tend to look after itself.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Agreed.

Mr. Lindsay: Yes, agreed, but the hon. Member did not go on to make the point which I thought he was going to make. This is a crying scandal at the present time. I am not concerned at the moment with the problem of money. I think it has been grossly exaggerated in the Press. It is difficult to get information. I asked a group of boys the other night. They work in an aircraft factory, and their reply was a typical one: "That is a secret we must not tell you." That was their particular way of putting it asked the same group of boys whether they had got their football team going. They were to have been playing matches before Christmas "on Sundays, the only time they can play football. Their reply was, Sundays we lie in bed; we are tired out." That is three miles from here. All I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary is, first of all, whether he has established any connection between delinquency and high

wages, because in my experience the peak age for delinquency is between 12 and 13 years. That is the whole problem in London now. The relation of high wages and delinquency has come out in one or two startling cases.
Are we going to allow precisely the same things as happened between 1914 and 1918? When the Youth Committee was started the whole point was to try and prevent what happened between 1914 and 1918. We have not been overtaken so much by delinquency as by a complete breakdown of any system of juvenile control. That is perfectly clear. I asked the same group of boys—I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) who seemed to think, because I was speaking after his hon. Friend, I was attacking him, would note this—why some of them did not join the A.T.C. This is a rougher type of boy, who has got out of the habit of even wanting to do a bit of mathematics and navigation in the evening. They said, in reply to me, "Too much like work Junior commandos for us, with a tommy gun." That boy comes in so tired in the evening that he cannot get down even to the more exciting work in the A.T.C. I say that it will make nonsense of the Government's registration scheme unless they control hours. I believe there ought to be a charter of hours for the under 18's during the war. I believe that if such a charter is laid down, this question of wages will begin to settle itself. I spoke in Scotland on Saturday morning to a man who is a turner, who complained that it was very unfair—

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Dugaale.]

Mr. Lindsay: He said, "It is very unfair; I am going to be moved from an aircraft factory back to the mines. I was getting £3 18s. as a turner at the pit: I am now getting £6 18s. as a turner in the aircraft factory. This is more interesting work. I have bought worth of tools. Why should I go back to the pit? Can you help me?" This shows chaos in regard to wages. I have been a believer in trade unionism all my political days. It is not a question of breaking down trade


unionism, or of breaking down wages. But there is no answer to that man. Those are the two figures which he gave me, and which I verified. That is the position with adults. With boys, there is an even greater chaos. I do not profess to understand these questions of wages, but if you laid down a charter to provide that boys should not be working, as they are in London at present, for 55 and 62 hours a week, things would be much better. It is impossible in such circumstances to have a proper apprenticeship. Why should a boy apprentice himself when he can, work—and, indeed, overwork—in this way? Even after working all those hours, boys are joining the Home Guard, and, in many cases putting their ages down falsely as 16 in order to do it. This will break down their morale and physique. How are you going to fill up your new registration schemes for boys between 16 and TR? The circular issued by the Board of Education the other day said that it would be understood that some boys between the ages of 16 and 18 would not be able to take advantage of the facilities provided owing to their long hours—the circular did not say "long"—of work. I appeal to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. I know that he has great knowledge, as a result of his previous experience on local authorities. I appeal to him to ask the President of the Board of Education—who I am sorry is not here to-day—and the Home Secretary for a charter dealing with hours of labour for youths. If he will do that, he will be doing a good service to the youth of this country, he will be solving the problem of these haphazard cases of high wages, which come before the courts, and he will be doing something for the future of youth in this country.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): At the risk of being thought pedantic, I would suggest that what we have listened to again to-day is a series of generalisations from a few particular cases. When this question of juvenile wages has been raised, I have gone out into the country to see whether I could find examples. In my own constituency, in spite of the fact that I have advertised, I have not been able to find a single case of a youth receiving what could be regarded as an unreasonable wage. I am not suggesting

that I would either agree or disagree with what other hon. Members regard as abnormal wages. I have a great deal of sympathy with the suggestion just made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay). It seems to me that the evil of the high wage lies, not in the amount of money, but rather in the excessive hours which that high wage represents, and the possible physical effect on the growing youth. But consideration has to be given to the fact that many a boy of 16 or 17 is almost equal in physique to any man. Contractors who may be called sinners in this respect have seen the potential labour power of this type of individual and utilised it. I am strengthened by the suggestion made on every side that these cases, when they have appeared in the Press, are so enhanced in value that we are entitled to think that they are general rather than isolated cases.
It has apparently bee a assumed that little or no attempt was made to regulate the wages of young people. Of the 2,000,000 young people who are in insurable employment in this country, the wages of 1,350,000 are covered by agreements between employers and trade unions. That means that nearly 70 per cent. of the young people are covered by agreements. It may be that there are some employers who are not members of their organisation and as a consequence engage young people outside these agreements, and it may be that some of these are the cases which appear from time to time either in the police court or in the Press. But we are constantly endeavouring to bring the wages and conditions of young people under agreements, and wherever there is a lack of organisation we are endeavouring to set up machinery in order that these problems may be discussed between employers and workers.
Since the question was raised in the first instance, when it was agreed that, if there was a case against any particular section of employers, it vas perhaps the large contractor, an agreement has been entered into in the building industry which should tend to level out the anomalies which may have arisen in that particular trade. I do not want to be drawn into a discussion of the wages policy or lack of wages policy of the Government, but I would warn the House against making comparisons even with regard to the wages of young people. It has been suggested on every hand that wherever a youth is doing


the job, he should receive the money. The basis of all our agreements in operation since the beginning of the war has been the rate for the job. That is the reason for the anomaly about which my hon. Friend spoke, but it is the only way in which you can regularise the position. Therefore, even though it may have effects that we do not want among our own people, I repeat that, if a young person is sent to do a man's job, he is entitled to the man's wage. We at any rate must be prepared to face that situation.

Mr. Lipson: When these agreements were made with the contractors by which juveniles only receive a percentage of the earnings of the men on the job?

Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, it is for that reason that we are attempting to regularise the jobs upon which young people should be engaged. Therefore, implicit in the agreement is the understanding that young people should be used to do young people's jobs and not men's jobs.
My hon. Friend complained about the average earnings of juveniles in July. He said that averages could be misleading. I agree, but they are not nearly so misleading as the incidental anonymous reports which appear from time to time in newspapers. But at the least the averages which were given relating to the earnings of juveniles in July, 1941, were of a representative character. They referred to close on 500,000 juveniles. My hon. Friend made play with the fact that in the distributive trades earnings were not high and, therefore, tended to bring down the average and that apprentices would be included. It is perfectly true that the number of apprentices in the metal, engineering and shipbuilding industries are referred to in these averages, but it may surprise him to know that the distributive trades are not taken into account. These do not refer to the distributive trades at all. So the poor wages in the distributive trades referred to could not have been used to bring down the general average.
When he quoted 50s. 5d. per week as the average earnings of boys and youths from 14 to 21, that was only the average earnings in the building and contracting industry, and it was shillings per week more than that in any other. I submit that if we consider the average earnings of youths between 14 and 21, counting in

the earnings and bonuses paid for overtime, etc., and dealing with a representative number of young people in half-a-dozen, different trades in this country, with regulations governing the payment of wages and hours between employer and employee, covering 1,350,000 out of 2,000,000 people, we shall begin to see this problem in its right perspective. I suggest that the new agreement entered into by the building industry at the request of the Minister has done something really constructive towards meeting any anomally in this direction.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Does the agrement cover public works contractors?

Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. The question of linking up this problem with that of delinquency has been adequately dealt with by my hon. Friend opposite. If there has been an increase—and everybody knows that there has—it is most marked in the years prior to the children earning anything at all, and I think it is doing a disservice, rather than a service, to deal with this problem by attempting to link it up with something which may be the outcome of the war but which, I am convinced, is not a real contributing factor at this stage to the position that has arisen. In my younger days it was always suggested that juvenile delinquency grew because young people were kept short of money and, therefore, did things they ought not to do because they were seeking to obtain something with which to meet their requirements. It was said that because they did not have two halfpennies to rub together they went out and broke the law. Now it is suggested that because they have one-pound notes to rub together they are also in danger of breaking the law.
In my judgment we have to look to wartime conditions in other directions for the increase in juvenile delinquency—lack of, parental control and lack of control in schools as a consequence of the war, the black-out and the generally changed conditions which have taken place. Somebody said that war was no good for young people. War is no good to anybody from the moral standpoint, and you cannot expect children to grow good morally in a world which is going to the bad in order to save itself. I say that because it seems to me that by attempting to fasten these things on to something which has nothing


to do with them, one is doing a disservice and not a service to young people.
When it is suggested that something should be done, may I say that I think the Government, by their new registration scheme whereby the young people between these respective ages can be brought to the knowledge of the people whose business it is to assist them, have taken a step which can, and I believe will, lead to a great improvement in this direction. When the registration scheme has been put into operation and these young people have been brought to the notice of the education authorities and the people in the areas who are anxious to assist in this direction, I believe it will be possible to do more in that way than by any restrictive measures which it has been suggested should be taken by the Department which I have the honour to serve. I think that if we can lead them along right lines, it is much the best way of dealing with the problem.
I do not suggest there is not a problem, although I believe it has been overstated and that more has been attributed to it than could reasonably and properly be so attributed. I believe that the Ministry of Labour, by attempting to analyse the position, by seeking to get agreements relating to hours and to wages, by working in conjunction with the Board of Education in making the best of the Government's registration scheme, and seeking to bring these young people into their right relationship with the community—and it may be utilising some of the money, if need be, which they are earning, and which they have not been earning previously—are dealing with the problem in the right way. If these things can be linked up with real leadership, it may be that some of the boys who find their way into the police courts will have an opportunity of using those very faculties which are taking them into the police courts at the moment in leadership for the benefit of the boys themselves. I hope it will not be felt that the Minister and the Department have been unmindful of this problem. We are anxious that it should not be overstated, but at the same time we are anxious that it should be felt that we have done what we can to see that the young people are used to the best advantage both of themselves and the community.

Sir Irving Albery: I very much regretted the last words of the Parliamentary Secretary, when he rather indicated that he believes the Government and the Ministry have done all that can reasonably be done to tackle this problem. One has to face the fact that, owing to male and female labour above a certain age being conscripted for the national purpose, there is at the present time, and there will continue to be, an artificial call upon juvenile labour. It is not only a question of those who are being paid too much; it is also, in many directions, a question of those who are being paid too little. I have had many letters from constituents, sometimes the parents of the young people, complaining that the young persons were engaged, not at pounds a week, but at shillings a week, that they had had better employment offered to them elsewhere, employment which they would have preferred, which their parents considered held better prospects for the future, but which they were not allowed to take because, under the Ministry's Order, they had to stay where they were at their present low wages. Most of the speeches to which we have listened have been on the question of too high wages. There can be no getting away from the fact that, conditions being what they are, there are many cases where young people are employed at too low wages and the Government, through the Ministry, are forcing them to remain in such employment although they could earn more elsewhere, probably with greater advantage to themselves not only at present but also as regards their training in the future. I intervene only because I am disappointed at the concluding remarks of the Minister. This is a real problem and the Government and the Ministry have to tackle it; it is no good their trying to ride off with the idea that anything they have done up to the present is a proper solution of the problem.

Mr. Tomlinson: With the permission of the House, may I, in reply to the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery), say that the problem about which he has spoken is an entirely different problem altogether from the one with which I have been dealing.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.